to
approach, and as he stood beside her couch, she laid Marguerite's hand
in his, smiled peacefully as she felt the strong grasp close above it,
and, closing her eyes, with head turned a little aside, she passed away
so tranquilly that they could not have told when her last breath was
drawn.

When they realised that she was indeed dead, their grief had no words.
Old Bastienne, at the foot of the couch, recited the prayers for the
dead in a voice choked with sobs, and with the tears streaming down her
wrinkled cheeks; but Marguerite knelt in silence, dry-eyed, beside the
body of her friend, gazing into the quiet, calm face. At last Claude
raised her, and, tenderly wrapping a cloak round her, led her from the
hut, and down to the beach. They stood in silence, trembling in each
other's arms, their hearts too full for speech or tears, while the chill
October wind whistled in from the sea, and the gulls and curlews flew
screaming about their heads.

CHAPTER XI

That same night, about the hour that Marie breathed her last, Charles de
la Pommeraye was riding furiously along the road leading eastward to
Paris, where the King was holding a temporary court. He rode all night,
and just as the first faint streaks of morning revealed in the distance
the grey outline of the towers of Notre Dame, his horse thundered into
the sleeping city.

He had had a weary voyage home; what winds there were had been adverse;
for nearly a month Cartier's vessels had lain becalmed in mid-ocean; and
it was not till the end of August that St Malo, with its towering walls
and rugged battlements, was reached.

The three vessels had been joyously welcomed by the Malouins. The
merchants who had made large advances to the daring adventurers, in the
hope of being recouped from the treasures of the New World, felt a
momentary pang at their losses: but private disappointment was forgotten
in the public rejoicing at the safe return of their daring and
world-famous fellow-townsman, Jacques Cartier.

La Pommeraye found but little pleasure in these festivities. He was
possessed by the one idea of seeing Marguerite as soon as possible.
Absence had in no way dimmed her image in his mind; fickle and
impressionable as he usually was, the best and noblest part of his
nature had been awakened by his love for the beautiful girl whom he had
met under such unusual circumstances, and of whom he had as yet seen so
little. Now that fortune seemed to be favour