he
obedient creature crouched at her feet.

"Mademoiselle has a strange guardian," said La Pommeraye, who had risen
at the animal's approach.

"He has kept me alive, Monsieur. But for him I should have gone mad, or
cast myself into the sea."

"Where are your companions?"

La Pommeraye shuddered as he asked the question, but he could keep it
back no longer.

"It is well with them," she answered calmly; "they sleep behind yonder
hill."

"Dead?" exclaimed La Pommeraye, beneath his breath.

"All dead," was her quiet reply.

"And yet you live! How long have you endured the loneliness of this
dreary spot?"

"Claude died before the snows fell, and since then Francois and I have
lived I know not how. I have tried to die, but Heaven has been too
kind."

La Pommeraye turned away his head, and the sobs he could no longer
restrain shook him from head to foot. He struggled for self-control. At
last he turned to her, and took her hand to lead her to the boat.

"Your old servant, Etienne Brule, is with me," he said. "He waits in the
boat for you. He will look after you while I collect whatever may be in
your hut."

But she drew back a little from him.

"Monsieur, I cannot----" and for the first time her voice faltered. "I
cannot leave my dead!"

Even at that moment Charles was conscious of a fierce throb at his
heart, as he realised that the woman he loved had irrevocably, for life
and for death, given her life to his friend.

As she spoke she turned, and led him past the hut, and up the hill to
the little group of graves. The hour of utter separation had come, and
she could say nothing. La Pommeraye felt that a word from him would be
sacrilege. Silent she stood there, torn between the fearful pang of
parting, and the realisation that she must go. At last her will
conquered, and she turned to La Pommeraye, saying simply: "I am ready,
Monsieur."

Of the fourth who slept in that lonely hillside cemetery she said not a
word. The young life had come into being, and had passed away again,
there, in this desert spot, amidst the trackless wastes of ocean,
unknown to any save the two whose souls it had for ever linked
indissolubly. Why should the world be told? The island would keep her
secret; and no one in France should ever learn that her child and
Claude's lay at rest in his father's grave.

She kneeled and kissed the stones which marked the spot; and then,
without one backward look, she followed La Pommeraye to t