Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/341

 pastor. Sometimes, in the evening, Le Mesurier would walk over to Saint Maclou, and smoke a pipe at the Rectory; sometimes, when the weather was tempting, the old clergyman, who liked him and pitied him, would come up in the afternoon to pay a visit to the Barracks, but these meetings between them were rare, and, as Le Mesurier grew more moody, and Chauchat more feeble, they became rarer still.

But one day, in the dirty living-room of his cottage, Le Mesurier sat and entertained an unexpected and most unwelcome guest.

Outside the window nothing was visible but whiteness—an opaque, luminous, sun-suffused whiteness, which obliterated earth and sky and sea. For Le Tas. and Saint Maclou, and the whole Island Archipelago, were enveloped in one of those wet and hurrying mists so common here in August. It blew from the north-east; broke against the high cliffs of Saint Maclou, as a river breaks against a boulder; overflowed the top; lay in every valley like some still inland lake; and, pouring down every headland on the south and west, swept out again to sea.

The cottage on Le Tas, at all times solitary, was this afternoon completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Le Mesurier's living-room, in its dirt and its disorder, showed plainly that no woman ever came there. Unwashed cooking utensils and crockery littered up the hearth and dresser; the baize cover and cushions of the jonquière, often lain upon, were never shaken or cleaned; rusting guns, disordered fishing tackle, canvases, a battered oil-paint box, spoke of occupations thrown aside and tastes forgotten. On a table in the window were writing-materials, a couple of dog-eared books, a tobacco-jar, a pipe,