saw that her horse was galloping
and casting up a little cloud of light snow behind it, so that, riding
as it were upon a small white cloud, she disappeared round the turn of
the cliffs.

Caius found no more pictures that day that he felt to be worthy of much
attention. He went back to the festive scene of the marriage, and moving
his horse nearer and further from it, he found that only from the point
where the lady had taken her stand was it to be distinctly seen. Twenty
yards from the right line of vision, he might have passed it, and never
known the beauty that the streaks and stains could assume.

When he went home he amused himself by seeking on the road for the track
of the other horse, and when he found that it turned to Cloud Island he
was happier. The place, at least, would not be so lonely when the lady
was at home.

_BOOK III._

CHAPTER I.

HOW HE HUNTED THE SEALS.

At this time on the top of the hills the fishermen were to be seen
loitering most of the day, looking to see if the seals were coming, for
at this season the seals, unwary creatures, come near the islands upon
the ice, and in the white world their dark forms can be descried a long
distance off. There was promise of an easy beginning to seal-fishing
this year, for the ice had not yet broken from the shore on the seaward
side of the island, and there would not at first be need of boats.

Caius, who had only seen the fishermen hanging about their doors in lazy
idleness, was quite unprepared for the excitement and vigour that they
displayed when this first prey of the year was seen to approach.

It was the morning after Madame Le Maitre had returned to her home that
Caius, standing near his own door, was wondering within himself if he
might treat her like an ordinary lady and give her a formal call of
welcome. He had not decided the point when he heard sounds as of a mob
rushing, and, looking up the road that came curving down the hill
through the pine thicket, he saw the rout appear--men, women and
children, capped and coated in rough furs, their cheeks scarlet with the
frost and exercise, their eyes sparkling with delight. Singly down the
hill, and in groups, they came, hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm, some driving
in wooden sleighs, some of them beating such implements of tinware as
might be used for drums, some of them shouting words in that queer
Acadian French he could not understand, and all of them laughing.

He could not c