ly he
heard Marie-Louise's voice as she spoke to her uncle; and occasionally
he heard the old fisherman reply--but that was all. In nearer the
shore, where the current rushing through the narrows had lost its
potency, he edged the boat across the heavy sea, gained the comparative
calm under the lee of the headland, and began to work back to the upper
end--it was easier that way, difficult and slow as the progress was,
than to land and carry old Gaston along the beach. An hour? It might
have been that--or two--or half an hour--when he and Marie-Louise, in
the water beside him again, and close by where the lantern under the
bluff still burned as he had left it, were dragging the boat free from
the breakers and up upon the sand.

And then, while Marie-Louise ran for the lantern, Jean leaned over into
the boat.

"Gaston!" he called. "See, we are back! Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Gaston answered feebly.

"Then put your arms around my neck, _mon brave_, and I will lift you
up."

The arms rose slowly, clasped; and Jean, straightening up, was holding
the other as a woman holds a child. Gaston's head fell on his
shoulder, and the old fisherman whispered weakly in his ear.

"My side, Jean--hold me--lower--down."

"But, yes," Jean answered cheerily. "There--is that better. We shall
get easily to the house like this, and Marie-Louise"--she was back
again now--"will lead the way with the lantern."

Gaston's only answer was a slight pressure of his arm around Jean's
neck--but now, as the lantern's rays for an instant fell upon the
other's features, Jean's own face set like stone. The old fisherman's
eyes were closed, and the skin, where it showed through the grizzled
beard, wet and tangled now, was a deathly white--and Jean, motioning to
Marie-Louise, started hurriedly forward.

Only once on the way to the house, as Jean followed Marie-Louise up the
path from the beach, did Gaston speak again; and then it was as though
he were talking to himself, his tones low and broken, almost like the
sobbing of a child. Jean caught the words.

"Rene--Rene, my brother--the light is out, Rene--the light is out."

And with the words, something dimmed suddenly before Jean's eyes, and
the path, for a moment, and Marie-Louise were as a mist in front of
him. The light! For fourteen years the man he held in his arms had
burned that light--and the light was out now forever.

He hurried on, and, reaching the house, laid Gaston on t