“Dick,” she said at length, “perhaps you killed the—­the thing.”

“If it was human I did not miss,” I answered grimly.  “And it was human,” I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of having so nearly gone to pieces.  “Of course it was human!  The whole affair is plain enough.  Not a drunken brawl, as Durand thinks; it was a drunken lout’s practical joke, for which he has suffered.  I suppose I must have filled him pretty full of bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest.  It’s a terrible affair; I’m sorry I fired so hastily; but that idiot Le Bihan and Max Fortin have been working on my nerves till I am as hysterical as a schoolgirl,” I ended angrily.

“You fired—­but the window glass was not shattered,” said Lys in a low voice.

“Well, the window was open, then.  And as for the—­the rest—­I’ve got nervous indigestion, and a doctor will settle the Black Priest for me, Lys.”

I glanced out of the window at Tregunc waiting with my horse at the gate.

“Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the others.”

“I will go, too.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes, Dick.”

“Don’t, Lys.”

“I shall suffer every moment you are away.”

“The ride is too fatiguing, and we can’t tell what unpleasant sight you may come upon.  Lys, you don’t really think there is anything supernatural in this affair?”

“Dick,” she answered gently, “I am a Bretonne.”  With both arms around my neck, my wife said, “Death is the gift of God.  I do not fear it when we are together.  But alone—­oh, my husband, I should fear a God who could take you away from me!”

We kissed each other soberly, simply, like two children.  Then Lys hurried away to change her gown, and I paced up and down the garden waiting for her.

She came, drawing on her slender gauntlets.  I swung her into the saddle, gave a hasty order to Jean Marie, and mounted.

Now, to quail under thoughts of terror on a morning like this, with Lys in the saddle beside me, no matter what had happened or might happen was impossible.  Moreover, Mome came sneaking after us.  I asked Tregunc to catch him, for I was afraid he might be brained by our horses’ hoofs if he followed, but the wily puppy dodged and bolted after Lys, who was trotting along the highroad.  “Never mind,” I thought; “if he’s hit he’ll live, for he has no brains to lose.”

Lys was waiting for me in the road beside the Shrine of Our Lady of St. Gildas when I joined her.  She crossed herself, I doffed my cap, then we shook out our bridles and galloped toward the forest of Kerselec.

We said very little as we rode.  I always loved to watch Lys in the saddle.  Her exquisite figure and lovely face were the incarnation of youth and grace; her curling hair glistened like threaded gold.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spoiled puppy Mome come bounding cheerfully alongside, oblivious of our horses’ heels.  Our road swung close to the cliffs.  A filthy cormorant rose from the black rocks and flapped heavily across our path.  Lys’s horse reared, but she pulled him down, and pointed at the bird with her riding crop.