Once upon a time, it did and in some varieties still does: its origin was in a lost /s/ (later other deleted consonants too, IIRC), which lead to compensatory l

Once upon a time, it did and in some varieties still does: its origin was in a lost /s/ (later other deleted consonants too, IIRC), which lead to compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. You can still see this in some varieties of French, such as Belgian and Swiss French, which preserve the old long vowels somewhat better than metropolitan French.