Antoine strode out again, without saying more.  He fancied he was in the Valley of Dwarfs already, about to meet Marie.  He saw the weird, gnarled trunks of trees on either hand, that grew among—­sometimes writhed around—­the huge fantastic boulders:  the dark cave-like recesses, formed strangely between and under them where the dwarfs lay hidden to emerge at dusk:  the sides of the ravine towering up stern and gloomy on either hand:  and high above all against the sky, the grey stone cross at which he was to meet Marie.  He saw it all as if he were there, and the ground beneath him, as he tramped on, seemed unreal.  Twilight was already falling over the rocks and the grey sea:  there were no lights in the village, except such as shone here and there in a cottage window:  the distant roar of the sea was heard, as it dashed over a long line of rocks two or three miles out, but there was hardly any other sound:  the place indeed seemed God-abandoned, like some long-forgotten strand of a dead world, with the skeleton house on the rock above for its forsaken citadel.

It was already dark in the ravine when Antoine arrived there, and anyone not knowing how instinctive is the feeling for the ways of his mother earth in a son of the soil, would have thought his straightforward stride, in such a chaos of rocks and pitfalls, reckless, till they observed with what certainty each step was taken where alone it was possible and safe.  He was making his way through the valley to the cross above, where the light still lingered, and it yet wanted some fifteen minutes to the time of rendez-vous, when he suddenly stopped in a listening attitude; he had reached a part of the valley to which superstition had attached the most dangerous character.  A particular rock called “The Black Stone,” which towered over him on the left, and slightly bending towards the centre of the valley, seemed like some threatening monster about to swoop upon the traveller, was especially regarded as the haunt of evil spirits.  It was in this direction that he now heard a slight sound, which his practised ear discerned at once as not being one of the sounds of nature.  Immediately afterwards the shadow of the rock beside him seemed to move and enlarge, and out of it there sprang the figure of a man, and stood straight in Antoine’s path.  Antoine’s whole frame became rigid, like that of a beast of prey on the point of springing, even before the shadow revealed its limping foot.

Geoffroi was the first to speak.

“You gave me the lie this afternoon.  Take it back now and see what you think of the taste of it.  Would you like to see Marie?”

“What are you saying?  What is it to you when I see Marie?”

“It is this—­that I have arranged a nice little meeting for you.  Hein?  Are you not obliged to me?”

Antoine’s voice sounded hollow and muffled as he replied, “Stand out of the path.  You have nought to do between her and me.”