So he was not there?  Again destiny was between them, everywhere and always.  She thought at first of putting off her visit to another day.  But the little lass who had met her might mention the fact.  What would they think at Pors-Even?  So she decided to go on, but loitering so as to give Yann time to return.

As she neared his village, in this lost country, all things seemed rougher and more desolate.  Sea breezes that made men stronger, made shorter and more stubbly plants.  Seaweeds of all kinds were scattered over the paths, leaves from growths in another element, proving the existence of a neighbouring world; their briny odour mingled with the perfume of the heather.

Now and again Gaud met passers-by, sea-folk, who could be seen a long way off, over the bare country, outlined and magnified against the high sea-line.  Pilots or fishers, seeming to watch the great sea, in passing her wished her good-day.  Broad sun-burnt faces were theirs, manly and determined under their easy caps.

Time did not go quickly enough, and she really did not know what to do to lengthen the way; these people seemed surprised at seeing her walk so slowly.

What could Yann be doing at Loguivy?  Courting the girls, perhaps.

Ah! if she only had known how little he troubled his head about them!  He had simply gone to Loguivy to give an order to a basket-maker, who was the only one in the country knowing how to weave lobster pots.  His mind was very free from love just now.

She passed a chapel, at such a height it could be seen remotely.  It was a little gray old chapel in the midst of the barren.  A clump of trees, gray too, and almost leafless, seemed like hair to it, pushed by some invisible hand all on one side.

It was that same hand that had wrecked the fishers’ boats, the eternal hand of the western winds, and had twisted all the branches of the coast trees in the direction of the waves and of the off-sea breezes.  The old trees had grown awry and dishevelled, bending their backs under the time-honoured strength of that hand.

Gaud was almost at the end of her walk, as the chapel in sight was that of Pors-Even; so she stopped there to win a little more time.

A petty mouldering wall ran round an enclosure containing tombstones.  Everything was of the same colour, chapel, trees, and graves; the whole spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones, the knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wall niches, were covered by the same grayish lichen, splashed pale yellow.

On one of the wooden crosses this name was written in large letters: 

“GAOS.—­GAOS, JOEL, 80 years.”

Yes, this was the old grandfather—­she knew that—­for the sea had not wanted this old sailor.  And many of Yann’s relatives, besides, slept here; it was only natural, and she might have expected it; nevertheless, the name upon the tomb had made a sad impression.