"There was the Duc de Pontferrand; she refused him last October--just at the time, Monsieur Augustin, when she was making inquiries about you in London from the old gentleman whose name I cannot remember, who lives with a little boy in Cavendish Square." "I know she did that, God bless her!" said La Vireville. "I did not, of course, know about the Duc." He fell silent, fingering the rail and still gazing out to sea. It occurred to du Coudrais that though he had the look of one who has weathered a long and trying illness, he yet seemed in some indefinable way a younger man. "Why should I not hire a boat and sail over to Sark?" asked La Vireville suddenly. "My wooing must in any case be rough and ready. I could be back before the _Cormorant_ sails, if I went at once." "Ma foi, an excellent idea!" said Raymonde's brother heartily. "That is, of course, the solution. I will procure you a boat, if you wish. You must be sure to take a native with you, even though the distance be not great, for sailing hereabouts is dangerous, if only on account of the hidden rocks--'stones,' as they call them." He looked about him. "There is Tom Le Pelley; he would serve your purpose." (2) A quarter of an hour later La Vireville was sailing over that laughing expanse towards the gem of rose and emerald and flame, whose beauty, though his eyes were set upon it all the while, he hardly marked. The boatman spoke of channels and swift tides, of the Anfroques, the Longue Pierre, the Goubinière, but names of reefs and rocks went by La Vireville unheeded. He was going to put to the test what Anne-Hilarion had shown him. He was liberated at last from his servitude of mind, and he wanted Raymonde--wanted her with all his heart. It was very strange to him now that he had not known this when he was with her more than a year ago. Du Coudrais had given him the name of the farm which Mme. de Guéfontaine had gone to visit, and once landed he found it easily enough, for there were not many of them on that slender strip of an isle, pillared on its rocks and magic caves. But Raymonde was not there, and they told him that she was out on one of the headlands.