“A month ago.”
“When did she go?” Jean Jacques’ voice was almost a whisper.
“A month ago.”
“Where did she go?” asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for he had a strange dreadful premonition.
“Out of all care at last,” answered the Young Doctor, and took a step towards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself.
“She—my Zoe is dead! How?” questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort of voice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shown in other tragic moments.
“It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband’s body in a sleigh to the railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of the sleigh went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and saved it. The driver was lost also.”
“Her child—Zoe’s child?” quavered Jean Jacques. “A little girl—Zoe. The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father—to you. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that letter to you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder.” He pointed. “Everybody was there—even when they knew it was to be a Catholic funeral.”
“Ah! she was buried a Catholic?” Jean Jacques’ voice was not quite so blurred now.
“Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them in the Peace River Country was here at the time.”