"Mamma often calls me Cora," said the child, "but papa likes Coral best. Where are papa and mamma? Can't I see them now?"
"I can take her down to see her mamma," said Lucy. "She is sleeping now, they say, so little missy can just look at her quietly, and then come away again."
Little Coral was quite satisfied when she had taken a look at her mother, lying with her face almost as white as the pillow it pressed, in the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. Apparently she saw nothing very unusual in her mother's appearance, for she whispered to Lucy that her mamma was often ill thus, and would be sure to be better soon, and then very willingly suffered herself to be taken back to Beryl.
Beryl brought out her prettiest books and playthings to amuse her little guest, and completely won her heart by the gift of a doll, a kind of toy which Beryl was wont to eye with disdain, but which seemed the loveliest object imaginable to little Coral. The children were very happy together for the rest of the day.
On the following day, the shipwrecked sufferer seemed a little stronger. Mr. Hollys had some talk with her. He was obliged to tell her that her husband's body had been washed ashore, and to ask if there were any relatives to whom she would like him to communicate the fact of his death. The poor woman bore the sad intelligence better than could have been expected. She knew that her husband was dead, she said; and she should not have wished to survive him, save for the sake of their little child.
To Mr. Holly's surprise, she declared that she had no friends in England. The only relative she had living, her brother, was far away in Australia. She had quarrelled with him at the time of her marriage, of which he had disapproved, and had not heard of him for years, so that she did not know where a letter might find him.
Her husband's name was Louis Despard; he came of an old Canadian family of French extraction; her child was named Coralie Despard, after her husband's mother.
Their wedded life had been full of trouble. For a short time they had lived in London; but things had not prospered with them there, and her husband had always been eager to get back to his own country, so when he had the offer of a share in a business in Montreal, nothing would do but he must accept it. But the venture proved unhappy. The business was a failing concern, and her husband lost nearly all his money in it. After struggling for years with disappointment and difficulty, Mrs. Despard's health, never very robust, completely broke down, and a doctor having said that a voyage might perhaps restore her, they had resolved, as a last resource, to sell everything, and return to England, to begin life anew there.
Such was the story told by the suffering woman, in brief, broken sentences as her strength permitted. "And now," she said at last, bursting into tears, "my husband is gone, everything is lost; and what will become of me and my child, I know not."
Mr. Hollys was touched by the sight of her distress. He was a man of tender heart, though little used to scenes of sorrow and suffering. Kind words rushed to his lips in his anxiety to soothe the delicate, grief-stricken woman.