On reaching the edge of the chasm, the priest again stopped for a few seconds. Then he stretched out the arm in which he carried the mistletoe and, preceded by the sacred plant as by a talisman which altered the laws of nature in his favour, he took a step forward above the yawning gulf.
And he walked thus in space, all white in the moonlight.
What happened Veronique did not know, nor was she quite sure what had been happening, if she had not been the sport of an hallucination, nor at what stage of the strange ceremony this hallucination had originated in her enfeebled brain.
[Pg 119]She waited with closed eyes for events which did not take place and which, for that matter, she did not even try to foresee. But other, more real things preoccupied her mind. Her candle was going out inside the lantern. She was aware of this; and yet she had not the strength to pull herself together and return to the Priory. And she said to herself that, if the sun should not shine again within the next few days, she would not be able to light the flame and that she was lost.
She resigned herself, weary of fighting and realizing that she was defeated beforehand in this unequal contest. The only ending that was not to be endured was that of being captured. But why not abandon herself to the death that offered, death from starvation, from exhaustion? If you suffer long enough, there must come a moment when the suffering decreases and when you pass, almost unconsciously, from life, which has grown too cruel, to death, which Veronique was gradually beginning to desire.
"That's it, that's it," she murmured. "To go from Sarek or to die: it's all the same. What I want is to get away."
A sound of leaves made her open her eyes. The flame of the candle was expiring. But behind the lantern All's Well was sitting, beating the air with his fore-paws.
And Veronique saw that he carried a packet of biscuits, fastened round his neck by a string.
"Tell me your story, you dear old All's Well," said Veronique, next morning, after a good night's rest in her bedroom at the Priory. "For, after all,[Pg 120] I can't believe that you came to look for me and bring me food of your own accord. It was an accident, wasn't it? You were wandering in that direction, you heard me crying and you came to me. But who tied that little box of biscuits round your neck? Does it mean that we have a friend in the island, a friend who takes an interest in us? Why doesn't he show himself? Speak and tell me, All's Well."
She kissed the dog and went on:
"And whom were those biscuits intended for? For your master, for Francois? Or for Honorine? No? Then for Monsieur Stephane perhaps?"
The dog wagged his tail and moved towards the door. He really seemed to understand. Veronique followed him to Stephane Maroux's room. All's Well slipped under the tutor's bed. There were three more cardboard boxes of biscuits, two packets of chocolate and two tins of preserved meat. And each parcel was supplied with a string ending in a wide loop, from which All's Well must have released his head.
"What does it mean?" asked Veronique, bewildered. "Did you put them under there? But who gave them to you? Have we actually a friend in the island, who knows us and knows Stephane Maroux? Can you take me to him? He must live on this side of the island, because there is no means of communicating with the other and you can't have been there."
Veronique stopped to think. But, in addition to the provisions stowed away by All's Well, she also noticed a small canvas-covered satchel under the bed; and she wondered why Stephane Maroux had hidden[Pg 121] it. She thought that she had the right to open it and to look for some clue to the part played by the tutor, to his character, to his past perhaps, to his relations with M. d'Hergemont and Francois:
"Yes," she said, "it is my right and even my duty."
Without hesitation, she took a pair of big scissors and forced the frail lock.
The satchel contained nothing but a manuscript-book, with a rubber band round it. But, the moment she opened the book, she stood amazed.
On the first page was her own portrait, her photograph as a girl, with her signature in full and the inscription:
"To my friend Stephane."
"I don't understand, I don't understand," she murmured. "I remember the photograph: I must have been sixteen. But how did I come to give it to him? I must have known him!"
Eager to learn more, she read the next page, a sort of preface worded as follows:
"Veronique, I wish to lead my life under your eyes. In undertaking the education of your son, of that son whom I ought to loathe, because he is the son of another, but whom I love because he is your son, my intention is that my life shall be in full harmony with the secret feeling that has swayed it so long. One day, I have no doubt, you will resume your place as Francois' mother. On that day you will be proud of him. I shall have effaced all that may survive in him of his father and I shall[Pg 122] have exalted all the fine and noble qualities which he inherits from you. The aim is great enough for me to devote myself to it body and soul. I do so with gladness. Your smile shall be my reward."
Veronique's heart was flooded with a singular emotion. Her life was lit with a calmer radiance; and this new mystery, which she was unable to fathom any more than the others, was at least, like that of Maguennoc's flowers, gentle and comforting.
As she continued to turn the pages, she followed her son's education from day to day. She beheld the pupil's progress and the master's methods. The pupil was engaging, intelligent, studious, zealous loving, sensitive, impulsive and at the same time thoughtful. The master was affectionate, patient and borne up by some profound feeling which showed through every line of the manuscript.
And, little by little, there was a growing enthusiasm in the daily confession, which expressed itself in terms less and less restrained:
"Francois, my dearly-beloved son-for I may call you so, may I not?-Francois, your mother lives once again in you. Your eyes are pure and limpid as hers. Your soul is grave and simple as her soul. You are unacquainted with evil; and one might almost say that you are unacquainted with good, so closely is it blended with your beautiful nature."
Some of the child's exercises were copied into the book, exercises in which he spoke of his mother with passionate affection and with the persistent hope that he would soon see her again.
[Pg 123]"We shall see her again, Francois," Stephane added, "and you will then understand better what beauty means and light and the charm of life and the delight of beholding and admiring."
Next came anecdotes about Veronique, minor details which she herself did not remember or which she thought that she alone knew:
"One day, at the Tuileries-she was only sixteen-a circle was formed round her… by people who looked at her and wondered at her loveliness. Her girl friends laughed, happy at seeing her admired…
"Open her right hand, Francois. You will see a long, white scar in the middle of the palm. When she was quite a little girl, she ran the point of an iron railing into her hand…"
But the last pages were not written for the boy and had certainly not been read by him. The writer's love was no longer disguised beneath admiring phrases. It displayed itself without reserve, ardent, exalted, suffering, quivering with hope, though always respectful.
Veronique closed the book. She could read no more.
"Yes, I confess, All's Well," she said to the dog, who was already sitting up, "my eyes are wet with tears. Devoid of feminine weaknesses as I am, I will tell you what I would say to nobody else: that really touches me. Yes, I must try to recall the unknown features of the man who loves me like this… some friend of my childhood whose af[Pg 124]fection I never suspected and whose name has not left even a trace in my memory."