l of wonder and awe.

"You tell it well," he said, "and I have heard of such things before.
But did this really happen to you? Is it true?"

"As God lives it is true," she answered. "I was afraid I had loved you
too much. I was afraid you might be dead. That was why I gave my
wedding-ring--for your soul. Look, I will swear it to you on the
crucifix."

She went to the wall behind the bed where the crucifix was hanging.
She lifted her hand to take it down.

There, on the little shelf at the feet of the wounded figure, she saw
her wedding-ring.

Her hands trembled as she put it on her finger. Her knees trembled as
she went back to Prosper and sat beside him. Her voice trembled as she
said, "Here it is,--_He_ has given it back to us."

A river of shame swept over him. It seemed as if chains fell from his
heart. He drew her to him. He felt her bare arms around his neck. Her
head fell back, her eyes closed, her lips parted, her breath came
soft and quick. He waited a moment before he dared to kiss her.

"My dove," he whispered, "the sin was not that you loved too much, but
that I loved too little."

MESSENGERS AT THE WINDOW

The lighthouse on the Isle of the Wise Virgin--formerly called the
Isle of Birds--still looks out over the blue waters of the Gulf of
Saint Lawrence; its white tower motionless through the day, like a
sea-gull sleeping on the rock; its great yellow eye wide-open and
winking, winking steadily once a minute, all through the night. And
the birds visit the island,--not in great flocks as formerly, but
still plenty of them,--long-winged waterbirds in the summer, and in
the spring and fall short-winged landbirds passing in their
migrations--the children and grandchildren, no doubt, of the same
flying families that used to pass there fifty years ago, in the days
when Nataline Fortin was "The Keeper of the Light." And she herself,
that brave girl who said that the light was her "law of God," and who
kept it, though it nearly broke her heart--Nataline is still guardian
of the island and its flashing beacon of safety.

Not in her own person, you understand, for her dark curly hair long
since turned white, and her brown eyes were closed, and she was laid
at rest beside her father in the little graveyard behind the chapel at
Dead Men's Point. But her spirit still inhabits the island and keeps
the light. The son whom she bore to Marcel Thibault was called
Baptiste, after her father, and he is now