When the moon went down, they abandoned the quest; but at dawn, when the tide was on the turn, they were out again, searching, searching for a white, drowned face and a mass of red-brown hair.  But the sea only laughed in the sunlight and revealed no secrets.

Mademoiselle was quite prostrate by that time.  She lay in a darkened room with her head swathed in a black shawl, and called upon all the holy saints to witness that she had always predicted this disaster.

Chris’s two young brothers slept fitfully, waking now and then to assure each other uneasily that of course she would turn up sooner or later sound in wind and limb; she always did.

Noel, the younger, who was more or less in Chris’s confidence, gave it as his opinion that she had eloped with someone, that officer-chap she met the other day, he’d lay a wager!  But Maxwell poured contempt upon the bare suggestion.  Chris—­elope with a Frenchman!  He could as easily see himself eloping with the Goat—­a pet name that he and his brother had bestowed upon Mademoiselle Gautier, and which fitted her rather well upon occasion.

Three hours after sunrise the prodigal returned, lightfooted, gay of mien.  She was alone when she arrived, having firmly refused Bertrand’s escort farther then the end of the plage, lest poor Mademoiselle, who hated men, should have hysterics.  But the tale of her adventures had preceded her.  All Valpre knew what had happened, and watched her with furtive curiosity.  All Valpre knew that the petite Anglaise had spent the night in a cave with one of the officers from the fortress, and all Valpre waited with bated breath, prepared to be duly scandalized.

But Chris was sublimely unconscious of this.  Of course, she knew that Mademoiselle would be shocked, but then Mademoiselle’s feelings were so extremely sensitive upon all points moral that it was almost impossible to spend an hour in her company without in some fashion doing violence to them.  One simply tumbled over them, as it were, at every turn.

She expected and encountered the usual storm of reproach, but when Mademoiselle proceeded to inform her that she was ruined for life, she opened her blue eyes wide and barely suppressed a chuckle.  She professed penitence and even asked forgiveness for all the anxiety she had caused, but she could not see that what had happened possessed the tragic importance that Mademoiselle assigned to it.  According to her distracted governess, she had almost better have been drowned.  For the life of her, Chris couldn’t see why.

When the tempest had somewhat spent itself, she retreated to her brothers, to whom she poured out a full and animated account of the night’s happenings.  They all agreed that Mademoiselle must have rats in the upper story to make such a pother over the adventure, though Maxwell, who held himself to be approaching years of discretion, gave it as his opinion that the whole thing was a piece of bad luck and an experiment not to be repeated.