“I,” says Mariet.

“No, no, don’t speak of him; I shall not be able to sleep all night.  Since they settled on that hill, in that accursed castle, I know no rest; I am dying of fear.  You are also afraid.  Confess it.”

“Well, not all of us are afraid.”

“What have they come here for?  There are two of them.  What is there for them to do here in our poor land, where we have nothing but stones and the sea?”

“They drink gin.  The sailor comes every morning for gin.”

“They are simply drunkards who don’t want anybody to disturb their drinking.  When the sailor passes along the street he leaves behind him an odour as of an open bottle of rum.”

“But is that their business—­drinking gin?  I fear them.  Where is the ship that brought them here?  They came from the sea.”

“I saw the ship,” says Mariet.

The women begin to question her in amazement.

“You?  Why, then, didn’t you say anything about it?  Tell us what you know.”

Mariet maintains silence.  Suddenly one of the women exclaims: 

“Ah, look!  They have lit a lamp.  There is a light in the castle!”

On the left, about half a mile away from the village, a faint light flares up, a red little coal in the dark blue of the twilight and the distance.  There upon a high rock, overhanging the sea, stands an ancient castle, a grim heritage of grey and mysterious antiquity.  Long destroyed, long ruined, it blends with the rocks, continuing and delusively ending them by the broken, dented line of its batteries, its shattered roofs, its half-crumbled towers.  Now the rocks and the castle are covered with a smoky shroud of twilight.  They seem airy, devoid of any weight, and almost as fantastic as those monstrous heaps of structures which are piled up and which are falling so noiselessly in the sky.  But while the others are falling this one stands, and a live light reddens against the deep blue—­and it is just as strange a sight as if a human hand were to kindle a light in the clouds.

Turning their heads in that direction, the women look on with frightened eyes.

“Do you see,” says one of them.  “It is even worse than a light on a cemetery.  Who needs a light among the tombstones?”

“It is getting cold toward night and the sailor must have thrown some branches into the fireplace, that’s all.  At least, I think so,” says Mariet.

“And I think that the abbot should have gone there with holy water long ago.”

“Or with the gendarmes!  If that isn’t the devil himself, it is surely one of his assistants.”

“It is impossible to live peacefully with such neighbours close by.”

“I am afraid for the children.”

“And for your soul?”

Two elderly women rise silently and go away.  Then a third, an old woman, also rises.

“We must ask the abbot whether it isn’t a sin to look at such a light.”