There, too, a leprous thing with treacherous, gliding arms crawled after
prey, and at sight of it Carette gripped my arm and murmured "Pieuvre," as
though she feared it might hear her. She had always a very great horror of
those creatures, though in speaking of them when they were not present she
had at times assumed a boldness which she did not really feel. This,
however, was a very small monster, and indeed they do not grow to any very
great size with us.

This softly glowing place was very pleasant to us after the darkness and
lantern light of the other cave. We sat for a long time, till the glow
faded somewhat and the water began whuffling against the rock walls, and
climbed them slowly till at last all the cave was dark again, and we groped
back along the cleft to our sleeping-place with the sounds of great waters
in our ears from the Boutiques.

After that we sought the sea-cave each time we woke, and whenever the light
was in it we sat there, and ate, and talked of all we had done, and
thought, and feared, and hoped, during those long months when we were
apart. And once and again Carette fell on earlier times still, and we were
boy and girl together under the Autelets and Tintageu, or swimming in Havre
Gosselin, and trembling through the Gouliot caves behind Krok's tapping
stick. And we talked of Aunt Jeanne's party, and our Riding Day, and Black
Boy, and Gray Robin. And she told me much of the Miss Maugers, and their
school, and her school-fellows. And at times she fell silent, and I knew
she had sudden thought of her brother Helier. But, you see, she had so
long thought of him as dead, that the fact that he had died later than she
had supposed had not the power to cloud her greatly. And perhaps the fact
that we were together, and going to part no more, was not without its
effect on her spirits.