Carre gripped the small boy’s two hands in his big brown one, and the youngster with a shout threw back his body and planted his feet on his grandfather’s leg, and walked up him until the strong right arm encircled him and he was seated triumphantly in the crook of it.  Whatever the old man might have against his son-in-law there was no doubt as to his feeling for the boy.

“He is gone,” he said, with a grave nod, in response to his daughter’s questioning look.  “But I misdoubt him.  You had much better come with me to Belfontaine for a time, Rachel.”

She shook her head doubtfully.

“He’s an angry man, and if he should get back—­” said her father.

“In his right mind he would be sorry—­”

“I misdoubt him,” he said again, with a sombre nod.  “I shall have no peace if you are here all alone....”

But she shook her head dismally, with no sign of yielding.

“It has been very lonely,” he said.  “You and the boy—­”

And she looked up at him, and the hunger of his face seemed to strike her suddenly.  She got up from the fern-bed and said, “Yes, we will come.  My troubles have made me selfish.”

“Now, God be praised!  You lift a load from my heart, Rachel.  You will come at once?  Put together what you will need and we will take it with us.”

“And the house?”

“It will be all safe.  If you like I will ask George Hamon to give an eye to it while you are away.  Perhaps—­” Perhaps she would decide to remain with him at Belfontaine, but experience had taught him to go one step at a time rather than risk big leaps when he was not sure of his footing.

So, while she gathered such things as she and the boy would need for a few days’ stay, he strode back down the sunny lane to La Vauroque, to leave word of his wishes with Hamon’s mother.

And Philip Carre’s heart was easier than it had been for many a day, as they wound their way among the great cushions of gorse to his lonely house at Belfontaine.  And the small boy was jumping with joy, and the shadow on his mother’s face was lightened somewhat.  For when one’s life has broken down, and untoward circumstances have turned one into a subject for sympathetic gossip, it is a relief to get away from it all, to dwell for a time where the clacking of neighbourly tongues cannot be heard, and where sympathy is all the deeper for finding no expression in words.  At Belfontaine there was little fear of oversight or overhearing, for it lay somewhat apart, and since his daughter’s marriage Philip Carre had lived there all alone with his dumb man Krok, who assisted him with the farm and the fishing, and their visitors were few and far between.

Now that jumping small boy was myself, and Rachel Carre was my mother, and Philip Carre was my grandfather.  But what I have been telling you is only what I learned long afterwards, when I was a grown man, and it had become necessary for me to know these things in explanation of others.