ght to your eye, the joy
to your heart. Could prayer, do you think, make me sorrier than I am? I
have hurt what I would have spared from hurt at the cost of my life--and
all the lives in all the world!" he added fiercely.

"Forgive me--oh, forgive your Rosalie!" she pleaded. "I did not know
what I was saying--I was mad."

"It was all so sane and true," he said, like one who, on the brink of
death, finds a satisfaction in speaking the perfect truth. "I am glad to
hear the truth--I have been such a liar."

She looked up startled, her tears blinding her. "You have not deceived
me?" she asked bitterly. "Oh, you have not deceived me--you have loved
me, have you not?" It was that which mattered, that only. Moveless and
eager, she looked--looked at him, waiting, as it were, for sentence.

"I never lied to you, Rosalie--never!" he answered, and he touched her
hand.

She gave a moan of relief at his words. "Oh, then, oh, then... " she
said, in a low voice, and the tears in her eyes dried away.

"I meant that until I knew you, I kept deceiving myself and others all
my life--"

"But without knowing it?" she said eagerly.

"Perhaps, without quite knowing it."

"Until you knew me?" she asked, in quick, quivering tones.

"Till I knew you," he answered.

"Then I have done you good--not ill?" she asked, with painful
breathlessness.

"The only good there may be in me is you, and you only," he said, and
he choked something rising in his throat, seeing the greatness of her
heart, her dear desire to have entered into his life to his own good. He
would have said that there was no good in him at all, but that he wished
to comfort her.

A little cry of joy broke from her lips. "Oh, that--that!" she cried,
with happy tears. "Won't you kiss me now?" she added softly.

He clasped her in his arms, and though his eyes were dry, his heart wept
tears of blood.

CHAPTER LII. THE COMING OF BILLY

Chaudiere had made--and lost--a reputation. The Passion Play in the
valley had become known to a whole country--to the Cure's and the
Seigneur's unavailing regret. They had meant to revive the great story
for their own people and the Indians--a homely, beautiful object-lesson,
in an Eden--like innocence and quiet and repose; but behold the world
had invaded them! The vanity of the Notary had undone them. He had
written to the great papers of the province, telling of the advent of
the play, and pilgrimages had been organised, and exc