The momentary hush of the crowd was at an end.  The children began crying, and the women calling loudly upon St. Michel and the Holy Virgin.  The men gathered about Nicolas and Michel, and went down in a compact group to the causeway beyond the gate.  There the lurid sun, shining dimly through the fog, made the most sanguine look grave and shake their heads hopelessly behind the father and mother.  The latter sat motionless, looking out with straining eyes to see if Delphine were not coming through the thickening mist.

“Mais que faire! que faire!” cried Nicolas, catching at somebody’s shoulder for support without seeing whose it was.  It was Michel’s, who had not stirred from his side since he had first clasped his arm.  Michel’s face was as white as the mother’s; but there was a resolute light in his eyes that was not to be seen in hers.

“Nothing can be done,” answered one of the oldest men in answer to Nicolas’s cry, “nothing, nothing!  We do not know where the child is lost.  See! there are leagues and leagues of sand; and one might wander miles away from where the poor little creature is at this instant.  The great archangel St. Michel protect her!”

“I will go,” said the mother, lifting herself up; and, raising her voice, she called loudly, with a cry that rang and echoed against the walls, “Phine!  Phine! my little Phine, come back to thy poor mother!” But there was no answer, except the sobs and prayers of the women and children clustering behind her.

“Thou canst not go!” exclaimed Nicolas; “there are our other little ones to think of; nor can I leave thee and them.  My God! is there then no one who will go and seek my little Delphine?”

“I will go,” answered Michel, standing out from among the crowd, and facing it with his white face and resolute eyes; “there is only one among you all upon the Mont who will miss me.  I leave my mother to your care.  There is no time for me to bid her adieu.  If I come back alive, well! if I perish, that will be well also!”

Even then there was no cordiality of response on the hearts of his old friends and neighbours.  The superstition and prejudice of long years could not be broken down in one moment and by one act of self-sacrifice.  They watched Michel as he laid his full creel down from his shoulders, and threw across them the strong square net with which he fished in the ebbing tide.  His silence was no less expressive than theirs.  Without a sound he passed away barefooted down the rude causeway.  His face, as the sun shone on it, was set and resolute with a determination to face the end, whatever the end might be.  He might have so trodden the path to Calvary.