The Last Hope | Page 3

seeking one that should be
distinguished, if only by the evidence of a little care at the hands of the
living. He looked down the wide grass-grown street--partly paved after
the manner of the Netherlands--toward the quay, where the brown river
gleamed between the walls of the weather-beaten brick buildings.
There was a ship lying at the wharf, half laden with hay; a coasting
craft from some of the greater tidal rivers, the Orwell or the Blackwater.
A man was sitting on a piece of timber on the quay, smoking as he
looked seaward. But there was no one else in sight. For Farlingford was
half depopulated, and it was tea-time. Across the river lay the marshes,
unbroken by tree or hedge, barren of even so much as a hut. In the
distance, hazy and grey in the eye of the North Sea, a lighthouse stood

dimly, like a pillar of smoke. To the south--so far as the eye could
pierce the sea haze--marshes. To the north--where the river ran between
bare dykes--marshes.
And withal a silence which was only intensified by the steady hum of
the wind through the gnarled branches of the few churchyard trees
which turn a crouching back toward the ocean.
In all the world--save, perhaps, in the Arctic world--it would be hard to
find a picture emphasising more clearly the fact that a man's life is but a
small matter, and the memory of it like the seed of grass upon the wind
to be blown away and no more recalled.
The bearer of one of the great names of France stood knee-deep in the
sun-tanned grass and looked slowly round as if seeking to imprint the
scene upon his memory. He turned to glance at the crumbling church
behind him, built long ago by men speaking the language in which his
own thoughts found shape. He looked slowly from end to end of the
ill-kept burial ground, crowded with the bones of the nameless and
insignificant dead, who, after a life passed in the daily struggle to wrest
a sufficiency of food from a barren soil, or the greater struggle to hold
their own against a greedy sea, had faded from the memory of the
living, leaving naught behind them but a little mound where the butcher
put his sheep to graze.
Monsieur de Gemosac was so absorbed in his reflections that he
seemed to forget his surroundings and stood above the grave, pointed
out to him by River Andrew, oblivious to the cold wind that blew in
from the sea, deaf to the clink of the sexton's inviting keys, forgetful of
his companion who stood patiently waiting within the porch. The
Marquis was a little bent man, spare of limb, heavy of shoulder, with
snow-white hair against which his skin, brown and wrinkled as a
walnut shell, looked sallow like old ivory. His face was small and
aquiline; not the face of a clever man, but clearly the face of an
aristocrat. He had the grand manner too, and that quiet air of
self-absorption which usually envelops the bearers of historic names.
Dormer Colville watched him with a good-natured patience which

pointed, as clearly as his attitude and yawning indifference, to the fact
that he was not at Farlingford for his own amusement.
Presently he lounged back again toward the Marquis and stood behind
him.
"The wind is cold, Marquis," he said, pleasantly. "One of the coldest
spots in England. What would Mademoiselle say if I allowed you to
take a chill?"
De Gemosac turned and looked at him over his shoulder with a smile
full of pathetic meaning. He spread out his arms in a gesture indicative
of horror at the bleakness of the surroundings; at the mournfulness of
the decaying village; the dreary hopelessness of the mouldering church
and tombs.
"I was thinking, my friend," he said. "That was all. It is not
surprising . . . that one should think."
Colville heaved a sigh and said nothing. He was, it seemed, essentially
a sympathetic man; not of a thoughtful habit himself, but tolerant of
thought in others. It was abominably windy and cold, although the corn
was beginning to ripen; but he did not complain. Neither did he desire
to hurry his companion in any way.
He looked at the crumbling grave with a passing shadow in his clever
and worldly eyes, and composed himself to await his friend's pleasure.
In his way he must have been a philosopher. His attitude did not
suggest that he was bored, and yet it was obvious that he was eminently
out of place in this remote spot. He had nothing in common, for
instance, with River Andrew, and politely yawned that reminiscent
fish-curer into silence. His very clothes were of a cut and fashion never