Then one morning she locked the door of her house, put the key
in her pocket, and took the cutter for Guernsey; and none regretted her
going.
And, as it turned out, though that had not been her intention at the
time, it was the last Sark was to see of her. Rumours reached them later
of her marriage to a fellow-countryman, with whom she had gone to
France. The one thing they knew for certain was that she never came back
to La Closerie, and after due interval, and consequent on other matters,
they broke open the door and resumed possession of the house.
Night after night Gard slowly crossed the Coupee, lingered in its
shadows, went on into Little Sark, and came lingering back.
And night after night the Doctor and the Senechal lay in the heather of
the headlands, guns in hand, waiting for something that never came, and
then going stiffly home to one or other of their houses, to lubricate
their joints and console their disappointment with hot punch and much
tobacco.
"I'm afraid it's no go," was the Doctor's grudging verdict at last, on
the fourteenth blank night.
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