ust as Marie was leaving for the ship? That is a
scene that stands out upon my memory sharply now. And did you say
anything about an old priest? I saw him leaning over the side of the
boat and slipping something into Mane's sack."

"No," said Jessie, "I didn't tell you any of that, though it all
happened as you say. Let us go home, Jack, it frightens me terribly. Oh,
I wish you hadn't bought that Marsh!" and she clung trembling to the
young man's arm.

"But what can it mean?" persisted Desbra, as they descended the hill.
"Why should I think that I was there when it all happened,--that it all
happened to me, in fact? My grandmother was of French blood,--perhaps
Acadian blood, for my grandfather married her, in the West Indies. After
the exile the Acadians, you say, were scattered all over the face of the
New World! Can there be in my veins any of the blood of that unhappy
people?"

Jessie stopped short and looked up at her lover's face. "Why, your
name," she cried, "sounds as if it might have been French once!"

"My grandfather's name was Manners Sutton," responded Desbra, musing.
"My father had to take my grandfather's name to inherit some property in
Martinique. I, of course, pronounce my name in English fashion, but it
is spelled just as my father's was--D-e-s-b-r-a!"

As the young Englishman gave his name its French accent and
pronunciation, Jessie uttered a little cry of intelligence and wonder.
She looked at her lover a moment in silence, and then said very slowly,
very deliberately, pausing for every word to tell.

"The name of Marie's lover, the young man who found the 'Witch's Stone,'
was--Pierrot Desbarats! D-e-s-b-a-r-a-t-s. You are none other, Jack,
than the great-grandson of Marie and Pierrot."

"Truly," said Desbra, "when I come to think of it, the name was spelled
that way once upon a time!"

"Well, you shall _not_ be a man of Destiny, Jack!" exclaimed the girl.
"I won't have it! But as for me, that is another matter. We shall see if
the 'Eye of Gluskap' has any malign influence over _me_!"

IV.

Early in December, having just returned to Grand Pre from their wedding
journey, Jack Desbra and his wife were standing one evening in a window
that looked out across the marshes and the Basin. It was a wild night. A
terrific wind had come up with the tide, and the waves raged in
thunderously all along the Minas Dykes. There was nothing visible
without, so thick was the loud darkness of the storm; bu