"If the windmill should prove too formidable," said he, from the
threshold, "I may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye,
monsieur my godfather."

He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face,
puzzling out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in
his mind, either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour
d'Azyr. He was disposed to be angry with them both. He found
these headstrong, wilful men who relentlessly followed their own
impulses very disturbing and irritating. Himself he loved his ease,
and to be at peace with his neighbours; and that seemed to him so
obviously the supreme good of life that he was disposed to brand
them as fools who troubled to seek other things.



CHAPTER VI

THE WINDMILL


There was between Nantes and Rennes an established service of three
stage-coaches weekly in each direction, which for a sum of
twenty-four livres - roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea
- would carry you the seventy and odd miles of the journey in some
fourteen hours. Once a week one of the diligences going in each
direction would swerve aside from the highroad to call at Gavrillac,
to bring and take letters, newspapers, and sometimes passengers. It
was usually by this coach that Andre-Louis came and went when the