ng his face to hers with a twinkle in his dark
eyes, in the hope that her manner of suppressing him might be continued;
but she had tantalizingly refused to humor the convalescent.

"I shall close your mouth no longer, Monsieur," she had said with a
grimace. "You will soon be the big, strong Jean Marcel we have always
known and must not expect to be a helpless baby forever. And now that
you can use your right arm, I shall no longer cut up your fish."

"But it is with great pain that I move my arm, Julie," he had protested
in a feeble effort to enlist her sympathy and so prolong the personal
ministrations he craved.

"Bah! When before has the great Jean Marcel feared pain? It is only a
ruse, Monsieur. I am too busy, now that you can help yourself, to treat
you as a child."

And so, reluctantly, Marcel had resigned himself to doing without the
aid of the nimble fingers of Julie Breton. The fierce bitterness in his
heart, which, before the fight on the beach with the Lelacs had made of
the days an endless torment, gave place, on his recovery, to a state of
mind more sane. Deep and lasting as was his wound, the realization of
the girl's devoted care of him had, during his convalescence, numbed the
old rawness. Gratitude and his innate manhood shamed Marcel into a
suppression of his grief and the showing of a brave face to Julie Breton
and the little world of Whale River. In his extremity she had stood
staunchly by his side. She had been his friend, indeed. He deserved no
more. And now in his prayers, for he was a devout believer in the
teachings of Pere Breton, he asked for her happiness.

One evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel and Fleur, again
walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping
with puppy awkwardness, Fleur's progeny roved near them. The hush of an
August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently
without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The
dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied
magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under
low-banked clouds, or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering
floor, to the rim of the world.

In silence the two, mute with the peace of the moment, watched the
heightening splendor of the western skies. Disdaining the alluring
scents of the neighboring scrub, which her puppies were exploring, Fleur
kept to Marcel's side where her nose might fin