Like will to like, and young blood is hot. . . . Lucien and Jeanne,
however, were always well conducted. . . . Yes, yes, my story?
Six months passed, and then came word that our rich artist desired to
sell his little _pied-a-terre_; but he demanded the price he had
given for it, and, moreover, what he called compensation for the
buildings he had added. Also he would only sell or let it with the
furniture; he wished, in short, to disencumber himself of his
purchase, and without loss. This meant that Lucien less than ever
could afford to buy; and there are no money-lenders on Ile Lezan.
The letter came as he was on the point of departing for another six
weeks on Ile Ouessant: and that evening the lovers' feet took them to
the nest they had so often dreamed of furnishing. There is no
prettier cottage on the island--I will show it to you on our way
back. Very disconsolately they looked at it, but there was no cure.
Lucien left early next morning.

"That was last autumn, a little before the wreck of your great
English steamship the _Rougemont Castle_. Days after, the tides
carried some of the bodies even here, to Ile Lezan; but not many--
four or five at the most--and we, cut off from shore around this
corner of the coast, were long in hearing the terrible news.
Even the lighthouse-keepers on Ile Ouessant knew nothing of it until
morning, for she struck in the night, you remember, attempting to run
through the Inner Passage and save her time.

"I believe--but on this point will not be certain--that the alarm
first came to Lucien, and in the way I shall tell you. At any rate
he was walking alone in the early morning, and somewhere along the
shore to the south of the lighthouse, when he came on a body lying on
the seaweed in a gully of the rocks.