“By the way,” he said, taking a little book from the shelf, “I believe this belonged to him too.  I remember to have seen him more than once poring over it with them close-seeing eyes of his.  The man was a rare scholar, and no mistake.”

Peter took the little book from him, and opened it.  Jean, glancing at him as he did so, uttered an exclamation.  A deadly paleness had overspread Peter’s face, and he clutched with his hand in the air, as though for something to steady himself with.  Then he staggered to his feet, still tightly grasping the little book, and saying something unintelligible, went out.

He went down the cliff to the place where, a week ago, he had found his wife and the stranger, and stood under the rock, and looked at the book.  He looked at it still closed in his hand, as if it were some venomous creature, which might, the next moment, dart forth a poisoned fang to sting him.  From the cover it appeared to be a little, much-worn prayer-book.  Presently he opened it gingerly, and read something written on the fly-leaf.  He spelled it out with some difficulty and slowly, and yet he looked at it as if the page were a familiar vision to him.  Then he remained immovable for a long time, gazing out to sea, with the little book crunched to a shapeless mass in his huge fist.  When at last he turned to ascend the cliff again, his face was ashen pale, and his step was that of an old man.  He trudged heavily across the common and along the road inland, five or six miles, till he reached the town, inquired for a certain auberge, entered the kitchen, and found himself face to face with the man he sought.  A spasm of fear passed swiftly over the face of Jacques, as he beheld Peter, and he instinctively started up from the bench on which he was sitting, and shrank backwards.  As he did so, he showed himself a disfigured paralytic, one side of his face being partly drawn, and one leg crooked.  He was an undersized man, with sandy hair, quick, intelligent, grey eyes, and a well-cut profile.

“Jacques Fauchon,” said Peter, “have no fear of me.”

Jacques kept his eyes on him, still distrustfully.

“I did not know,” continued Peter, speaking thickly and slowly, “the other day, what I know now.  I had never seen you but once—­and you have changed.”

“It is not my wish to cause trouble,” said Jacques, still glancing furtively round.  “Things being as they are, to my thinking, there’s nought for it but to let ’em be.”

“I have not said yet,” said Peter, “what it is I’ve come to say.  This little prayer-book with her name writ in it, and yours below,—­’tis the one she always took to church, as a girl—­has shown me the path I’ve got to take.  How you came back from the dead, I don’t know:  ’twas the hand of the Lord.  But here you are, and you are her husband, and not I.”  He stopped.

“Well, Mr. Girard, I know my legal rights,” began Jacques, “but considering—­and I’ve no wish to cause unpleasantness, of that you may be sure.  ’Tis why I never wrote, not knowing how the land might lie, and for four years I was helpless on my back.”