"You have been here before?" he went on. "I remember seeing you. You have forgiven me, then?"

"Quite. Think of other things now."

"I can't think of anything except that I must be dying, and that I am glad you are here."

"I have been near you all the while you have been here; I shall not leave you again."

"No, not again--it will be such a little while, and I cannot hurt you now. Have you been happy?"

"Sometimes. I had our child."

"Where is she?"

"Here. She was tired and has fallen asleep."

"Don't wake her yet. I know I forget a great deal--everything seems far off--but just at last I wanted you, and you are here."

Both were silent for a minute. Then he spoke again--

"Mary, why did you marry an Indian?"

"Because I loved him," she said, her voice half choked by sobs.

"It was a pity. You knew nothing. They cheated you into it; but I think, though he was a brute, he loved you always. In his way, you know, as much as he could."

His mind seemed to be beginning to wander again, and his voice grew weaker. She rose, crying quietly, and gave him a little more wine. Then she touched Lucia and said, "Come, my child."

Lucia was instantly awake. She followed her mother to the bedside.

"Here is our daughter. Can you see her?"

"Not very well. Is she like you?"

"No. She is an Indian girl--strangers say she is beautiful, but to me she is only my brave, good child."

"I am glad. She will make amends. It is all right now; you will be free and safe. Good-bye."

He was silent for awhile, lying with closed eyes; and when he spoke again it was in Ojibway. He seemed to be talking to his own people, and to fancy himself out in the woods with a hunting party. After a time this ceased also, and then he began to talk confusedly in the three languages which were familiar to him, and in broken, incoherent sentences. His voice, however, grew fainter and fainter. The wine which they gave him at short intervals seemed to revive him each time for a moment; but neither of them could doubt that the end was very near.

But as it came nearer still, the delusion that had been strongest lately came back to the dying man. He again fancied himself a child--the favourite pupil of the Jesuit fathers. He began to repeat softly, lessons they had taught him--prayers and scraps of hymns, sometimes Latin, sometimes French. Once, after a pause, he began to recite, quite clearly, a Latin Psalm--

"O Domine, libera animam meam: misericors Dominus et justus; et Deus miseretur.... Convertere, anima mea, in requiem tuam, quia Dominus benefecit tibi"--

Again there was a silence, for he was deaf to all earthly voices, and the wife and daughter knelt side by side and listened to those strange broken sentences, which seemed to come from a mind dead to all outward influences, yet not wholly unconscious of its own state.

Once he said "Mary;" but though she held his hand still clasped in hers, his wife could not make her voice heard in answer. Then he talked again murmuringly of old times; and last of all when the low musical tones had grown very feeble, but were musical still, Mary heard, "Mon Dieu, j'espere avec une ferme confiance"--There the words seemed to fail, until they grew audible again for one last moment--"la vie eternelle."

So he grew silent for ever in this life.

CHAPTER XIX.

The cold grey of the early winter morning was just beginning to be warmed by the first flash of crimson before sunrise, as Mrs. Bellairs drove away from the prison gates with the two who had kept so strange a vigil. Neither of them noticed the sky then, or they might have seen how after the shadows began to disappear, and the snowy glimmer which had shone palely all night, was swallowed up in the growing brightness of morning, everything began to be tinged with rosy splendour, and life fresh and joyous, sprang up to meet the sun. It was winter still--all last year's leaves and flowers were dead, and there was the hush of snow and frost upon everything; but over all, after storm and night came light and gladness, and the flowers would bloom again in their season.

It was quite early still and few people were stirring. They saw no one on their arrival except Bella, who was ready to run down and admit them the moment their sleigh-bells were heard. Mother and daughter went to their room, where the fire had been burning all night in readiness for their coming, and where Mrs. Bellairs herself brought them some coffee.

Then Lucia lay down and was soon asleep; and Mrs. Costello seeing that she was so, followed her example.

There was no vehement grief to keep her waking in these first hours of her widowhood, but rather a sense of infinite calm. The thought of her husband, so long a daily torture and irritation, was now a sacred memory--the last few hours had been to her the renewal of her marriage vows, to which death had brought only a fuller ratification, after life's long divorce. She was very weak and weary; and but for the child beside her, would have been glad to enter herself that unseen world whose gates seemed so near, and to have rested there; but it was not time yet. So she lay and thought, calmly and soberly, till she too dropped asleep.

She kept in her room all day till quite evening. Mr. Bellairs had undertaken to make all the needful arrangements, and it was not necessary that any one should know that the real direction of affairs rested with her. Her first occupation was to write to Mr. Strafford, telling him of Christian's death, and of her own wish, that the body should be taken to Moose Island for burial. It would have to be removed as soon as possible from the jail, and she desired that it might be carried at once to her old home, where she and Lucia would be ready to receive it. This letter was sent off by a special messenger; but as there could be no doubt of the answer, all went on at Cacouna as if it had already arrived. In the evening, when Mrs. Costello came down to join the rest of the family in the drawing-room, she had changed little of her usual gentle manner. There might be a deeper shade of gravity, but she was not, and did not appear, sad. Lucia and Bella were sitting together, talking softly. They had been speaking of the last few months--not saying much--but growing into a closer sympathy with each other, as they understood how great had been their community of sorrow, than they had ever felt in the unclouded years of their girlish friendship. It was long since Lucia had given up her fancies about Bella's marriage. The shock of her widowhood had shaken off all the gay affectations of the bride and brought her within the comprehension of Lucia's steadier and more transparent nature. And now that the secret which had stood so grimly between them was told, nothing remained to spoil the comfort of their intercourse.

Except its shortness. While they talked, an occasional sentence spoken by one or other of the elder group reached their ears, and once they stopped their conversation to listen. Mrs. Costello was saying, in answer to some question--

"To France, I think. Indeed I am sure we shall go there first."

"But," said Mrs. Bellairs, "such a voyage at this time of year! Do wait till spring."

"Except that it will be cold, I do not think the voyage will be worse now than at any other time," Mrs. Costello answered quietly.

"But, Lucia!" said Bella, "surely you are not going away now?"

"It seems that we are. Mamma has said nothing to me about it to-day, and I thought she might have given up the idea."

"Until to-day, then, you knew she intended it?"

"Yes." Lucia's cheeks grew rosy as she answered, for she remembered why the idea of European travel had seemed pleasant to her. One word from her companion might have set all those fluttering thoughts and hopes at rest; but Bella guessed nothing of them, and neither saw Lucia's change of colour, nor, if she had seen it, would have understood its cause.

"Do you think you will be long away?" she asked.

"I have no idea _now_. I think that before, mamma did not mean to come back at all."

"And you can leave Canada, and all of us so easily?"

"Oh! no, no;" and Lucia blushed more deeply than before. "Oh! Bella, I am a real Canadian girl. I should long for Canada again often, often, if I were away,--and for all of you."

"I don't see," Bella said, half sadly, half crossly, "what good it does people to go away. There is Maurice, who seems to have everything he can wish for, and yet, according to Mr. Leigh, he is perfectly restless and miserable, and wants to come back."

"Poor Maurice! if he is coming back I wish he would come before we go; but I suppose he cannot leave while Mr. Beresford lives."

"I don't see why you should care. You will see him in England; shan't you?"

"No. Mamma can't go to England. But perhaps he might come over to see us in France, if we stop there."

"Of course, he will. And if by that time you are both home sick, you can come out together again, you know."

Lucia shook her head.