His hand closed fast upon hers. "I am quite sure, _chérie_."
"Thank you. That's nice," she murmured. "I haven't said my prayers. Do you think it matters as I'm not going to bed? I really am tired."
"No, dear," he said. "_Le bon Dieu_ understands."
She moved her head a little. "Are you going to say yours, Bertie?"
"Oh, that's all right," she said comfortably. "Good-night!"
His lips were close, so close to her forehead. He could even feel her hair blow lightly against his face. But he remained rigid as a sentry--watchful and silent and still.
Once during that long night she stirred in her sleep--stirred and nestled closer to him with an inarticulate murmur; and he turned, moving for the first time, and gathered her into his arms, holding her there like an infant against his breast. Thereafter she slept a calm, unbroken slumber, serenely unconscious of him and serenely content.
And the man sat motionless, with eyes wide to the darkness, grave and reverent as the eyes of a warrior keeping his vigil on the eve of knighthood. But his heart throbbed all night long like the beat of a drum that calls men into action.
To say that Mademoiselle Gautier was extremely anxious over her young charge's disappearance would be to state the case with ludicrous mildness. She was frantic, she was frenzied with anxiety.
All the evening and half the night she was literally dancing with suspense, intermingled with fits of despair that reduced her, while they lasted, to a state of absolute collapse. Before midnight all Valpré knew that the little English _demoiselle_ was missing, and all Valpré scoured the shore for her in vain. Some of the fishermen put out in boats and continued the search by moonlight as near the rocks as it was possible to go. But all to no purpose.
When the moon went down, they abandoned the quest; but at dawn, when the tide was on the turn, they were out again, searching, searching for a white, drowned face and a mass of red-brown hair. But the sea only laughed in the sunlight and revealed no secrets.
Mademoiselle was quite prostrate by that time. She lay in a darkened room with her head swathed in a black shawl, and called upon all the holy saints to witness that she had always predicted this disaster.