The child shook her head. "Oh! please let me stay out here," she pleaded. "I promise not to be a trouble, and the stars are so nice."
Without another word he wrapped her up in his own fur-lined overcoat and made a bed for her on one of the seats, himself watching beside her.
But this time Laura could not sleep, the position was too strange. "What is that noise?" she asked nervously as the plash of the water against the great paddle-wheels came to her ears.
"The water and the wheels," he answered. "The wheels are rolling along through the waves, taking us over the sea."
The child raised herself on her elbow and looked round: "Where are we going? There's only sky and clouds out there. But, oh!" clasping her hands in delight, "look at the moon on the water. I see it like that at home sometimes. Once, when I could not go to sleep, mamma took me to the window, and a little bit of the sea was all white as it is to-night. She said it was the moon, and now we're going to catch the moon in the water. Oh! why didn't mamma come?"
For this was the ever-recurring trouble of the child. Her love for her mother was stronger and more enduring than it generally is among those of her age. A mother gives; but very often years pass before she receives any return to her devotion. Laura's love was strong, because, in the first place, there was nothing to divide it: her young life had never held another affection. Then her love and childish sympathy had for some time been partially checked, and, it may be, had therefore grown stronger in their secret place. Only during the last weeks had her young affection had its free course in the light of her mother's comprehending love.
Her plaint made her companion wince, but he would not answer it. After a few moments he looked at her again and saw that tears were in her eyes. They were reflecting, in their moistness, the white shimmering moonlight; in its pure unearthly shining the little face seemed almost transfigured.
L'Estrange had been superstitious from his youth up. He was the very creature of those dreams and inspirations to which the glowing South gives birth. Perhaps they had weakened his strong intellect. At any rate they had kept it in the shadowy twilight, giving little chance for living truth to make its entrance into his soul.
The look on the child's face startled him. "Does she belong to this earth?" he asked himself.
"Laura," he whispered, "look away from the stars. Doubtless they are thy sisters and brothers, little one, but look for one moment from them to me, and say what thoughts are in the busy little brain at this moment?"