Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/383

 head. So the hive hummed on, storing its legendary honey.

But one figure stood apart from all the dense and eager crowd; bereft, morose, uncommunicating, an old blind dog beside him. No one spoke to Monsieur Trumier, though glances were turned on him as he stood near the veiled monument, holding Médor by a cord.

He had let the Manoir to a family from Bordeaux and lived in Buissac near his niece's family. He made no friends; he spoke to no one, occupying himself with his niece's children and Mademoiselle Ludérac's decrepit animals. He was often to be seen in the cemetery, tending her grave, or in the woods where she had walked; and sometimes he and Médor wandered for hours on the island below, where she had lost her life. A slight feeling of superstitious awe surrounded him and it was whispered among the Buissac children that whereas Mademoiselle Ludérac blessed you if you were good to animals, Monsieur Trumier, if you were cruel, could lay a malediction upon you.

When Jill's little open car appeared at last at the turning of the road, it had to come slowly, so dense had grown the crowd. People stood on the parapet of the wall to look over the heads of others and boys had climbed up into the wayside poplars and clung there to the branches. Jill was pale as she looked at them all, opening a way for her. She had not expected such a concourse.

Sitting beside her were Monsieur le curé and Mon-