screamed out 'A sail! A sail!' two of us who were strong enough looked out also. There she was and sailing, as we could soon see, on a line as directly for us as if they had our bearings, and had been sent to fetch us.
'It was not until evening that she came up, though she was bringing a light breeze along with her. And when we were lifted on to her deck, and had water held to our lips, and knew that we were safe, we felt, I expect, much the same as you do now, monsieur, that it was the good God himself who had assuredly saved us from death. That was my last voyage, for Henriette was waiting for me at home, and I had promised her that after we had gone to church together I would go no more to distant countries, but would settle down here as a fisherman.'
'That was a narrow escape indeed, Pierre,' Harry said as he worked away with the tar brush. 'That idea of the turtle was a splendid one, and you may well say that God put it into the woman's head, for without it you could never have lived till the ship found you.'
In the meantime Henriette had made her rounds to the cottage to see what remarks had been made as to the coming of her visitors. She saw that everyone had guessed that the girls who had been picked up by Pierre were victims of the massacre, but no one supposed that it was the result of intention.
'Ah, Mere Gounard, but your good man was fortunate to-day,' one of the women said. 'My man did not go out. We heard what was doing at Nantes, and he had not the heart to go; besides, who would buy fish caught to- day? If he had thought of it he would have gone too, and perhaps he would have picked up somebody, as you have done. Poor things, what an escape for them!'
'It is wonderful that they have come round,' Henriette said. 'It was lucky my husband had some brandy in the boat. He thought for a time he would never bring the youngest round. They are only young girls. What harm could they have done that those monsters at Nantes should try to murder them? There is no fear, I hope, that any in the village will say a word about it.'
'What!' the woman said indignantly. 'Do you think that anyone here would betray a comrade to the Reds? Why, we would tear him to pieces.'
'No, no,' Henriette said; 'I never thought for a moment that anyone would do it intentionally; but the boys might let slip a word carelessly which might bring them down upon us.'
'We will take care of that,' the woman said. 'Make your mind easy. Not a soul outside the village will ever know of it.'
'And,' Henriette added, 'one of them has some money hidden upon her, and she told me just before I came out, when I was saying that the village would have a bad time now the fishing was spoiled—that as she hoped to cross to England in a few days, and would have no need of the money, for it seems that she can get plenty over there, she will give five crowns to each house in the village as a thank-offering.'
'Well, that is not to be despised,' the woman said. 'We shall have a hard time of it for a bit, and that will carry us on through it. You are sure she can spare it; because we would rather starve than take it if she cannot.'
Henriette assured her that her visitor said she could afford it well.
'Well, then, it's a lucky day for the village, Mere Gounard, that your husband picked them up.'
'Well, I will go back now,' Henriette said. 'Will you go round the village and tell the others about silencing the children? I must get some broth ready by the time these poor creatures wake.'
The next morning Jeanne appeared at breakfast in her dress as a fish-girl, but few words were spoken between her and Harry, for the fisherman and his wife were present.
'How is Virginie?' he asked.
'She's better, but she is weak and languid, so I told her she must stop in bed for to-day. Do not look anxious. I have no doubt that she will be well enough to be up to-morrow. She has been sleeping ever since she went to bed yesterday, and when she woke she had a basin of broth. I think by to-morrow she will be well enough to get up. But it will be some time before she is herself again. It is a terrible strain for her to have gone through, but she was very brave all the time we were in prison. She had such confidence in you, she felt sure that you would manage somehow to rescue us.'
Alter breakfast Jeanne strolled down with Harry to the river-side.
'I feel strange with you, Harry,' she said. 'Before you seemed almost like a brother, and now it is so different.'
'Yes; but happier?' Harry asked gently.
'Oh, so much happier, Harry! But there is one thing I want to tell you. It might seem strange to you that I should tell you I loved you on my own account without your speaking to the head of the family.'
'But there was no time for that, Jeanne,' Harry said smiling.
'No,' Jeanne said simply. 'I suppose it would have been the same anyhow; but I want to tell you, Harry, that in the first letter which she sent me when she was in prison, Marie told me, that as she might not see me again, she thought it right I should know that our father and mother had told her that night we left home that they thought I cared for you. You didn't think so, did you, Harry?' she broke off with a vivid blush. 'You did not think I cared for you before you cared for me?'
'No, indeed, Jeanne,' he said earnestly. 'It never entered my mind. You see, dear, up to the beginning of that time I only felt as a boy, and in England lads of eighteen or nineteen seldom think about such things at all. It was only afterwards, when somehow the danger and the anxiety seemed to make a man of me, when I saw how brave and thoughtful and unselfish you were, that I knew I loved you, and felt that if you could some day love me, I should be the happiest fellow alive. Before that I thought of you as a dear little girl who inclined to make rather too much of me because of that dog business. And did you really care for me then?'
'I never thought of it in that way, Harry, any more than you did, but I know now that my mother was right, and that I loved you all along without knowing it. My dear father and mother told Marie that they thought I was fond of you, and that, if at any time you should get fond of me too and ask for my hand, they gave their approval beforehand, for they were sure that you would make me happy.
'So they told Marie and Ernest, who, if ill came to them, would be the heads of the family, that I had their consent to marry you. It makes me happy to know this, Harry.'
'I am very glad, too, dear,' Harry said earnestly.
'It is very satisfactory for you, and it is very pleasant to me to know that they were ready to trust you to me. Ah!' he said suddenly, 'that was what was in the letter. I wondered a little at the time, for somehow after that, Jeanne, you were a little different with me. I thought at first I might somehow have offended you. But I did not think that long,' he went on, as Jeanne uttered an indignant exclamation, 'because if anything offended you, you always spoke out frankly. Still I wondered over it for some time, and certainly I was never near guessing the truth.'
'I could not help being a little different,' Jeanne said shyly. 'I had never thought of it before, and though I am sure it made me happy, I could not feel quite the same with you, especially as I knew that you never thought of me like that.'
'But you thought of me so afterwards, Jeanne?'
'Sometimes just for a moment, but I tried not to think of it, Harry. We were so strangely placed, and it made it easier for you to be a brother, and I felt sure you would not speak till we were safely in England, and I was in Ernest's care. But,' she said with a little laugh, 'you were nearly speaking that evening in the cottage when you felt so despairing.'
'Very nearly, Jeanne; I did so want comfort.'
And so they talked happily together for an hour.
'I wonder Pierre does not come down to his boat,' Harry said at last. 'There were several more things wanting doing to it. Why, there he is calling. Surely it can never be dinner-time; but that's what he says. It doesn't seem an hour since breakfast.'
Jeanne hurried on into the hut.
'Why, Pierre,' Harry said to the fisherman, who was waiting outside for him, 'I thought you were going on with your boat.'
'So I was, monsieur, but Henriette told me I should be in the way.'
'In the way, Pierre!' Harry repeated in surprise.
'Ah, monsieur,' Pierre said with a twinkle in his eye, 'you have been deceiving us. My wife saw it in a moment when the young lady came to breakfast.
''Brother!' she said to me when you went out; 'don't tell me! Monsieur is the young lady's lover. Brother and
