from
her lips, and sitting down on a cane sofa she covered her face with her
robe, after the manner of the people of the island when in the presence
of death.

Presently the door of Baldwin's room opened, and the white-haired old
priest came out and laid his hand sympathetically on the young man's
arm, and drew him aside.

He told him all in a few words. An hour before daylight Loise and the
boy Maturei had heard the old trader breathing stertorously, and ere
they could raise him to a sitting position he had breathed his last.

Heart disease, the good Father said. And he was so careless a man, was
M. Baldwin. And then with tears in his eyes the priest told Brice how,
from the olden times when Baldwin, pretending to scoff at the efforts of
the missionaries, had yet ever been their best and truest friend.

"And now he is dead, M. Brice, and had I been but a little sooner I
could have closed his eyes. I was passing in my boat, hastening to take
the mission letters to the _Malolo_ when I heard the_ tagi_ (the death
wail) of the people here, and hastening ashore found he had just passed
away."

Sick at heart as he was, the young man was glad of the priest's
presence, and presently together they went in and looked at the still
figure in the bedroom.

When they returned to the front room they found Loise had gone.

"She was afraid to stay in the house of death," said Maturei, "and has
gone to Vehaga" (a village eight miles away), "and these are her words
to the Father and to the friend of Tarau--'Naught have I taken from the
house of Tamu, and naught do I want'--and then she was gone."

The old priest nodded to Brice--"Native blood, native blood, M. Brice.
Do not, I pray you, misjudge her. She only does this because she knows
the village feeling against her. She does not belong to this island,
and the people here resented, in a quiet way, her marriage with my old
friend. She is not cruel and ungrateful as you think. It is but her
way of showing these natives that she cares not to benefit by Baldwin's
death. By and by we will send for her."

*****

After Baldwin had been buried and matters arranged, Brice and the
priest, and a colleague from the Mission, read the will, and Brice found
himself in possession of some two or three thousand dollars in cash and
as much in trade. The house at Rikitea and a thousand dollars were for
Loise.

He told the Fathers to send word over to Vehaga and tell Loise that
he only await