l probably be 'privation and exposure,'"
said he softly; "but it ought to be, 'killed by fright and the bite of
a harmless snake.'"

On his murmured suggestion, St. Pierre gave orders that, with one
exception, every woodsman go to his tree-felling, and that the lugger
and canoe, with the dead man lying untouched, be towed by skiff and a
single pair of oars to the head of the canal for inquest and burial.

"I'll go with him," said Tarbox softly to St. Pierre. "We owe him all
we're going to get out of these woods, and I owe him a great deal
more." When a little later he was left for a moment without a hearer,
he said to the prostrate form, "Poor fellow! And to think I had her
message to you to come out of this swamp and begin to live the life of
a live man!"

The rude funeral moved away, and soon the woods were ringing with the
blow of axes and the shout and song of black timber-men as gayly as
though there never had been or was to be a storm or a death.

CHAPTER XIX.

"TEARS AND SUCH THINGS."

Marguerite and her friend had no sooner taken their seats to drive
home from the studio the day the sketch was made than Marguerite began
a perfect prattle. Her eyes still shone exaltedly, and leaped and fell
and darkened and brightened with more than the swift variety of a
fountain in the moonlight, while she kept trying in vain to meet her
companion's looks with a moment's steady regard.

Claude was found! and she trembled with delight. But, alas! he had
heard her passionate call and yet stood still; had looked down upon
her in silence, and drawn again the curtain between them. She had
thought until the last moment, "He will come; he will confront us as
we pass out the door--will overtake us at the foot of the stairs--on
the sidewalk--at the carriage window." But it had not been so; and
now they were gone from the place; and here sat this friend, this gay,
cynical knower of men's and women's ways, answering her chatter in
short, smiling responses, with a steady eye fixed on her, and reading,
Marguerite believed, as plainly as if it were any of the sign-boards
along the rattling street, the writing on her fluttering heart. And
so, even while she trembled with strange delight, pain, shame, and
alarm pleaded through her dancing glances, now by turns and now in
confusion together, for mercy and concealment. But in fact, as this
friend sat glancing upon the young face beside her with secret
sympathy and admiration, it