CHAPTER LXXV

I was in the Near East when these little letters of Yves reached me; they brought me, in their simplicity, the already far-off perfume of the Breton country.

My memories of Brittany were fading fast. Even now I seemed to see them as through a mist of dreamland; the reefs I had known so well, the lights on the coast, Cape Finistère with its great dark rocks; and the dangerous approaches to Ushant on winter evenings, and the west wind blowing under a mournful sky, in the fall of December nights. From where I was now, it all seemed a vision of a sunless country.

And the poor little cottage at Toulven! How small it seemed, lost at the side of a Breton lane! But it was the region of deep beech woods, of grey rocks, of lichens and mosses; of old granite chapels and high-growing grass speckled with red flowers. Here, sand and white minarets under a vault surpassingly blue, and sunshine, eternal, enchanting sunshine!