To see those windows was almost too much happiness for Gilliatt.

Suddenly he saw her.

Derouchette approached.  She stopped.  She walked back a few paces, stopped again; then returned and sat upon a wooden bench.  The moon was in the trees; a few clouds floated among the pale stars; the sea murmured to the shadows in an undertone.

Gilliatt felt a thrill through him.  He was the most miserable and yet the happiest of men.  He knew not what to do.  His delirious joy at seeing her annihilated him.  He gazed upon her neck—­her hair.

A noise aroused them both—­her from her reverie, him from his ecstasy.  Someone was walking in the garden.  It was the footsteps of a man.  Derouchette raised her eyes.  The footsteps drew nearer, then ceased.  Accident had so placed the branches that Derouchette could see the newcomer while Gilliatt could not.  He looked at Derouchette.

She was quite pale; her mouth was partly open, as with a suppressed cry of surprise.  Her surprise was enchantment mingled with timidity.  She seemed as if transfigured by that presence; as if the being whom she saw before her belonged not to this earth.

The stranger, who was to Gilliatt only a shadow, spoke.  A voice issued from the trees, softer than the voice of a woman; yet it was the voice of a man.  Gilliatt heard many words, then, “Mademoiselle, you are poor; since this morning I am rich.  Will you have me for your husband?  I love you.  God made not the heart of man to be silent.  He has promised him eternity with the intention that he should not be alone.  There is for me but one woman on the earth; it is you.  I think of you as of a prayer.  My faith is in God, and my hope in you.”

Gilliatt heard them talking—­the woman he loved, the man whose shadow lay upon the path.  Presently he heard the invisible man exclaim:  “Mademoiselle!  You are silent.”

“What would you have me say?”

The man said, “I wait for your reply.”

“God has heard it,” answered Derouchette.

Then she went forward; a moment afterwards, instead of one shadow upon the path, there were two.  They mingled together, and became one.  Gilliatt saw at his feet the embrace of those two shadows.

Suddenly a noise burst forth at a distance.  A voice was heard crying
“Help!” and the harbour bell rang out on the night air.

It was Lethierry ringing the bell furiously.  He had wakened, and seen the funnel of the Durande in the harbour.  The sight had driven him almost crazy.  He rushed out crying “Help!” and pulling the great bell of the harbour.  Suddenly he stopped abruptly.  A man had just turned the corner of the quay.  It was Gilliatt.  Lethierry rushed at him, embraced him, hugged him, cried over him, and dragged him into the lower room of the Bravees.  “Give me your word that I am not crazy!” he kept crying.  “It can’t be true.  Not a tap, not a pin missing.  It is incredible.  We have only to put in a little oil.  What a revolution!  You are my child, my son, my Providence.  Brave lad!  To go and fetch my good old engine.  In the open sea among those cut-throat rocks.  I have seen some strange things in my life; nothing like that.”