CHAPTER X.
A LIGHT-GIVING WORD.
The next morning, before Caius went out, he wrote a short statement of all that had occurred beside the quicksand.

The motive that prompted him to do this was the feeling that it would be difficult for him to make the statement to Madame Le Maitre verbally.

He began to realize that it was not easy for him to choose the topics of conversation when they were together.
She did not ride with him next day, as now he knew the road, but in the course of the morning he saw her at the house where the three children were ill, and she came out into the keen air with him to ask some questions, and no doubt for the necessary refreshment of leaving the close house, for she walked a little way on the dry, frozen grass.
Heavy as was the material of her cloak and hood, the strong wind toyed with its outer parts as with muslin, but it could not lift the closely-tied folds that surrounded her face and heavily draped her figure.

Caius stood with her on the frozen slope.

Beneath them they could see the whole stretch of the shining sand-dune that led to the next island, the calm lagoon and the rough water in the bay beyond.