ttered to his feet.

"_Do not be angry_," said the bit of paper, piteously; _"forgive us, for
we love_." ("Pardonnez-nous, car nous aimons.")

Three years went by wearily enough. Antoine had entered the Church, and
was already looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and his
heart leaden, for there was no sweetness in life for him.

Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish
postmarks, was brought to the young priest--a letter from Anglice. She
was dying;--would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous, had fallen a
victim to the fever that raged on the island; and their child, Anglice,
was likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take
charge of the child until she was old enough to enter the convent of the
Sacre-Coeur. The epistle was finished hastily by another hand, informing
Antoine of Madame Jardin's death; it also told him that Anglice had been
placed on board a vessel shortly to leave the island for some
Western port.

The letter, delayed by storm and shipwreck, was hardly read and wept
over when little Anglice arrived.

On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise--she was so
like the woman he had worshiped.

The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and
lavished its richness on this child, who was to him not only the Anglice
of years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also.

Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother--the bending,
willowy form, the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that had
almost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him.

For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. She
talked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruits
and flowers and blue skies, the tall, fan-like trees, and the streams
that went murmuring through them to the sea. Antoine could not
pacify her.

By and by she ceased to weep, and went about the cottage in a weary,
disconsolate way that cut Antoine to the heart. A long-tailed paroquet,
which she had brought with her in the ship, walked solemnly behind her
from room to room, mutely pining, it seemed, for those heavy orient airs
that used to ruffle its brilliant plumage.

Before the year ended, he noticed that the ruddy tinge had faded from
her cheek, that her eyes had grown languid, and her slight figure more
willowy than ever.

A physician was consulted. He could discover nothing wrong with the
child, except this fad