"Mrs. Hughes wants to know if you will come and stay with her till after Monday. I have my gig at Abersethin, and can row you over now."
Valmai smiled, and the sadness of that smile remained in Mr. Francis' memory.
"No," she said, shaking her head slowly, "I will not leave my baby until he is buried, but thank her for me, and thank you, oh, so much. I did not know there was so much kindness left in the world."
As she spoke the tears gathered in her eyes, and, throwing her arms over the feet of the little dead child, she rested her head upon them, and broke into long, deep sobs.
Mr. Francis, more content, went quietly out of the house, and did not see Valmai again until on Monday he met the funeral in the churchyard. Valmai, to the horror of Nance and her friends, wore her usual white dress. She had a bunch of white jessamine in her hand, and, as the little coffin disappeared from sight, she showered the flowers upon it. Nance was too infirm to accompany her, so that she stood alone beside the grave, although surrounded by the fisher folk of the island. She sobbed bitterly as she heard the heavy clods fall on the coffin, and when at last everything was over, and it was time to move away, she looked round as if for a friend; and Mr. Francis, unable to resist the pleading look, pushed his way towards her, and, quietly drawing her arm within his own, led her homewards down the grassy slope to the shore, over the rough, uneven sand, and in at the humble cottage door. Nance received her with open arms, into which Valmai sank with a passionate burst of tears, during which Mr. Francis went out unnoticed.
[1] Poor little fellow.
CHAPTER XIV.
UNREST.
The summer months had passed away, and September had come and gone, and yet Cardo had not arrived. Valmai had trusted with such unswerving faith that in September all her troubles would be over—that Cardo would come to clear her name, and to reinstate her in the good opinion of all her acquaintances; but as the month drew to its close, and October's mellow tints began to fall on all the country-side, her heart sank within her, and she realised that she was alone in the world, with no friend but Nance to whom to turn for advice or sympathy.
A restless feeling awoke in her heart—a longing to be away from the place where every scene reminded her of her past happiness and her present sorrow. Every day she visited the little grave in the churchyard, and soon that corner of the burying-ground, which had once been the most neglected, became the neatest and most carefully tended. For her own child's sake, all the other nameless graves had become sacred to Valmai; she weeded and trimmed them until the old sexton was proud of what he called the "babies' corner." A little white cross stood at the head of the tiny grave in which her child lay, with the words engraved upon it, "In memory of Robert Powell ——." A space was left at the end of the line for another name to be added when Cardo came home, and the words, "Born June the 30th; died August the 30th," finished the sad and simple story. Nance, too, who seemed to have revived a good deal latterly, often brought her knitting to the sunny corner, and Valmai felt she could safely leave her grassy garden to the care of her old friend.