he would never have gone off and
left the poor Pani woman to die of grief. She sits there alone day after
day, and now she will not eat, though Dame Margot and the Indian woman
Wenonah try to comfort her. And this is Jeanne's spirit come for her.
You will find her dead body in the cottage. Ah, I have seen the sign."

"It was a strange disappearance!"

"The captain can tell," said another, "for if she was rescued from the
Indians he must have brought her down."

"Yes, yes," and they rushed in search of the captain, wild with
superstition and excitement.

It was really Jeanne Angelot. She had been rescued and left at Bois
Blanc, and then taken over to another island. A pretty, sweet young girl
and no ghost, Jeanne Angelot by name.

Jeanne sped on like a sprite, drawing her cap over her face. Ah, the
familiar ways and sights, the stores here, the booths shut, for the
outdoors trade was mostly over, the mingled French and English, the
patois, the shouts to the horses and dogs and to the pedestrians to get
out of the way. She glanced up St. Anne's street, she passed the
barrack, where some soldiers sat in the sunshine cleaning up their
accouterments. Children were playing games, as the space was wider here.
The door of the cottage was closed. There was a litter on the steps,
dead leaves blown into the corners and crushed.

"O Pani! Pani!" she cried, and her heart stood still, her limbs
trembled.

The door was not locked. The shutter had been closed and the room was
dark, coming out of the sunshine. There was not even a blaze on the
hearth. A heap of something at the side--her sight grew clearer, a
blanketed bundle, oh, yes--

"Pani! Pani!" she cried again, all the love and longing of months in her
voice--"Pani, it is I, Jeanne come back to you. Oh, surely God would not
let you die now!"

She was tearing away the wrappings. She found the face and kissed it
with a passion of tenderness. It was cold, but not with the awful
coldness of death. The lips murmured something. The hands took hold of
her feebly.

"It is Jeanne," she cried again, "your own Jeanne, who loves you with
all her heart and soul, Jeanne, whom the good God has sent back to you,"
and then the tears and kisses mingled in a rain on the poor old wrinkled
face.

"Jeanne," Pani said in a quavering voice, in which there was no
realizing joy. Her lifeless fingers touched the warm, young face, wet
with tears. "_Petite_ Jeanne!"

"Your own Jeanne come ba