dy who ever knew him must be the
better for Uncle Hughie."

"'Tis truth. For that, the good Lord will spare him to us. Of that be
sure."

"But I pray and pray and pray, and there comes no answer. He is never
any better. You know that. You can't deny it. Always before when I
have prayed the answer has come swift and sure, but now----"

"Take care, Margot. 'Tis not for us to judge the Lord's strange ways.
Else were not you and me and the master shut up alone on this island,
with no doctor near, and only our two selves to keep the dumb things
in comfort, though, as for dumbness, hark yonder beast!"

"Reynard! Oh! I forgot. I shut him up because he would hang about the
house and watch your poor chickens. If he'd stay in his own forest
now, I would be so glad. Yet I love him----"

"Aye, and he loves you. Be thankful. Even a beastie's love is of God's
sending. Go feed him. Here. The wing you'll not eat yourself."

There were dark days now on the once sunny island of peace.

That day when Mr. Dutton had said: "Your father is still alive,"
seemed now to Margot, looking back, as one of such experiences as
change a whole life. Up till that morning she had been a thoughtless,
unreflecting child, but the utterance of those fateful words altered
everything.

Amazement, unbelief of what her ears told her, indignation that she
had been so long deceived--as she put it--were swiftly followed by a
dreadful fear. Even while he spoke, the woodlander's figure swayed and
trembled, the hoe-handle on which he rested wavered and fell, and he,
too, would have fallen had not the girl's arms caught and eased his
sudden sinking in the furrow he had worked. Her shrill cry of alarm
had reached Angelique, always alert for trouble and then more than
ever, and had brought her swiftly to the field. Between them they had
carried the now unconscious man within and laid him on his bed. He had
never risen from it since; nor, in her heart, did Angelique believe he
ever would, though she so stoutly asserted to the contrary before
Margot.

"We have changed places, Angelique, dear," the child often said. "It
used to be you who was always croaking and looking for trouble. Now
you see only brightness."

"Well, good sooth. 'Tis a long lane has no turnin', and better late
nor never. Sometimes 'tis well to say 'stay good trouble lest worser
comes,' eh? But things'll mend. They must. Now, run and climb the
tree. It might be this ver' minute that wretch, P