ated, by what I ignorantly
called God's grace, from him and the world to which he belonged.
In my pride I refused to let him come into our lives, though he
implored me to let him make such restitution as was in his power.
He behaved as few men would have done; for the sake of the old
love, he bore with me and accepted my conditions--that he would
never mention our marriage, and would never come between you and
me. He let you go away from his side in Louisbourg, though his
heart was yearning for you; because his honour, a quality which I
pretended not to understand, forbade him to forget his promise to
me. He was always good to me, far beyond my deserts, and my hope,
now that my eyes are opened, is that you, Christopher, will remember
my debt to him.

"Try and be gentle, my boy. Be true to him. He has had a sad, lonely
life, but you may make it up to him yet. When you see him, tell
him from me... tell Hugh..."--but here I silently withdrew, leaving
the mother to whisper her last message of contrition to the boy
kneeling beside her bed.

Pitiful as was poor Lucy's story, I could gather but little comfort
from it. It seemed to me that in marrying out of his own class Hugh
had committed so grave a fault that whatever followed in the way
of misunderstanding was but to be expected. He had been kind,
forbearing, larger-minded than she had known; she had not even
realised the sense of honour which had made her a wife and not a
mistress. It had gone the way of all mistakes, and produced nothing
but bitterness and regret. From it I could gather no excuse, no
justification of his conduct towards me; he had allowed my affection
to grow up and centre in him without a warning I could understand
of the heart-break which confronted me, and I could not see that
his obligation towards her who had cast his love aside was more
sacred than to her to whom it was all in all.

We laid Lucy to rest in the garden of the Hospital--without the
rites of the Church, it is true, but not without both prayers and
tears, and then took up the daily round of duty once more.

Christopher, being no longer a patient, was ordered off to the town
as a prisoner, but I sent with him a note to M. Joannes which
secured him generous treatment. Through the month of August the
wounded continued to come in, and though our troops were starving
as they stood behind their lines of defence, they were one and all
hopeful of the result. The bombardment from the Levy s