"Papa," she said, turning to Maurice, "I'm quite ready, and you may go down now. I shall come presently. Please, I want to say good-bye to mon père alone."
Maurice could not have been more astonished if he had suddenly seen his little daughter put on her womanhood than he was at this calm demand. He even hesitated a moment. But the little one stood her ground.
Laura's instincts had told her what it was that had made her friend so suddenly cold and distant. She could not leave him without one more kind word; then, on the other hand, the presence of her father, and his stern forbidding of her ready tears, prevented her from letting her friend see some at least of the love and gratitude that filled her small heart.
Maurice looked at the tiny figure and smiled: "My daughter has her father's will. Well, little one, I suppose I must give in this time. It is natural, perhaps, that you should feel this, only don't be too long about your adieus."
He turned to L'Estrange, thanked him for his kindness to the child, asked if he could do anything for him before he went away; then, when the question had received a decided negative, bade him a courteous farewell.
Once more, and for the last time, the child and the man—the child so near heaven in her simplicity, the man world-weary and travel-stained—were left alone together, and now the little one felt that it was really for the last time.
He turned his face toward her. She threw herself down on her knees by his side, sobbing convulsively. "Mon père," she cried piteously, "is it for ever?"
For a few moments he was silent. In the sorrow of parting from this only creature in the world who purely loved him, the memory of that night when God's peace had been shed abroad in his soul, when the tumult of his heart had been stayed by the consciousness of a presence above and around him, returned to his mind. He was alone and hopeless no longer. "Little one," he answered, drawing her soft cheek to his, "you must look for me there—in heaven."
"I will, I will," answered the sobbing child, for heaven at this moment seemed near and real to her.
She was about to rise, but he drew her down again: "Laura, remember, if I go there ever it will be through thee. My child! my child!"—his voice broke down suddenly—"the great God bless thee, now, every day of thy life, and even for ever!"