This end of September was like another summer, only a little lesslively. The weather was so beautiful, that had it not been for thedead leaves that fell upon the roads, one might have thought that Junehad come back again. Husbands and sweethearts had all returned, andeverywhere was the joy of a second spring-time of love.

　　At last, one day, one of the missing ships was signalled. Which onewas it?

　　The groups of speechless and anxious women had rapidly formed on thecliff. Gaud, pale and trembling, was there, by the side of her Yann'sfather.

　　"I'm almost sure," said the old fisher, "I'm almost sure it's them! Ared rail and a topsail that clews up--it's very like them anyhow. Whatdo you make it, Gaud?

　　"No, it isn't," he went on, with sudden discouragement; "we've made amistake again, the boom isn't the same, and ours has a jigger sail.

　　Well, well, it isn't our boat this time, it's only the /Marie-Jeanne/.

　　Never mind, my lass, surely they'll not be long now."But day followed day, and night succeeded night, with uninterruptedserenity.

　　Gaud continued to dress every day like a poor crazed woman, always infear of being taken for the widow of a shipwrecked sailor, feelingexasperated when others looked furtively and compassionately at her,and glancing aside so that she might not meet those glances that frozeher very blood.

　　She had fallen into the habit of going in the early morning right tothe end of the headland, on the high cliffs of Pors-Even, passingbehind Yann's old home, so as not to be seen by his mother or littlesisters. She went to the extreme point of the Ploubazlanec land, whichis outlined in the shape of a reindeer's ho............