'The next moment she was gone.
'The men buried her with tender hands. Then in a kind of blind fury against Fate, they tore down her empty lodge and destroyed its every fragment; in their grim determination they even smoothed over the ground and planted shrubs and bushes, so that the very location might be lost. But they did not stay to see the change. In a month the camp broke up of itself, the town was abandoned, and the island deserted for good and all; I doubt whether any of the men ever came back or even stopped when passing by. Probably I am the only one. Thirty years ago,—thirty years ago!'
'That Mitchell was a great fool,' I said, after a long pause. 'The Doctor was worth twenty of him; for that matter, so was Black Andy. I only hope the fellow was well punished for his stupidity.'
'He was.'
'O, you kept track of him, did you?'
'Yes. He went back into the world, and the woman he loved repulsed him a second time, and with even more scorn than before.'
'Served him right.'
'Perhaps so; but after all, what could he do? Love is not made to order. He loved one, not the other; that was his crime. Yet,—so strange a creature is man,—he came back after thirty years, just to see our Lady's grave.'
'What! Are you—'