"Do you know when it was I first saw her?" said Caius, looking down at
the grass.

"She told me 'twas when she went to Prince Edward's Land, the time she
went to see the wife of her father's brother. 'Twas the one time that
O'Shea let her out of his sight; but no one knew where she was, so if
the Captain had come at that time he couldn't have found her without
coming to O'Shea first. And the other time that O'Shea let her go was
the first winter she came here, for he knew no one could come at the
islands for the snow, and we followed by the first ship in spring."

"Couldn't she get a separation?"

"O'Shea says the law is that way made that she couldn't."

"If she changed her name and went away somewhere----" Caius spoke
thoughtfully.

"And that's what O'Shea has been at her to do, for at least it would
give her peace; but she says, no, she'll do what's open and honest, and
God will take care of her. And I'm sure I hope He will. But it's hard,
sir, to see a young thing, so happy by nature as her, taking comfort in
nothing but prayers and hymns and good works, so young as she is; it's
enough to make the angels themselves have tears in their eyes to see
it."

At this the woman was wiping her own eyes; and, making soft sniffing
sounds of uncultivated grief, she went back to her work of strewing wet
garments upon the grass.

Caius felt that O'Shea's wife had read the mind of the angels aright.

CHAPTER V.

TO THE HIGHER COURT.

If Caius, as he went his way carrying the moss and budding flowers,
could have felt convinced with O'Shea's wife that Le Maitre was dead, he
would have been a much happier man. He could not admit the woman's
logic. Still, he was far happier than he had been an hour before. Le
Maitre might be dead. Josephine did not love Le Maitre. He felt that
now, at least, he understood her life.

Having the flowers, the very first darlings of the spring, in his hand,
he went, in the impulse of the new sympathy, and knocked at her house
door. He carried his burden of moss, earth, moisture, and little gray
scaly insects that, having been disturbed, crawled in and out of it,
boldly into the room, whose walls were still decorated with the faded
garlands of the previous autumn.

"Let me talk to you," said Caius.

The lady and the one young girl who happened to be with her had
bestirred themselves to receive his gift. Making a platter serve as the
rock-ledge from which the living things had been