“I thank you both,” she said. “I thank you kindly. But since I hold this title in my hand, I think—yes, I am sure that Vincent and I shall be married in my own manor at the Hanging Rock.”
And so our trials ended. Many years have gone by since then and the Red Band is forgotten. My noble patron has weathered safely the storm that Captain Kidd’s treachery brought down upon his head; he has long since been gathered to his fathers, honored and lamented by all in the whole province of New York. My stern mistress and her husband are dead, too, after a ripe old age, their estate going at last to enrich the poor of the city.
This ends my story, and all words are said save one. My wife and I have spent many happy years since that turbulent fall of 1699—and she has remained a Catholic, and I still cling to the faith of my Huguenot parents. Yet I see the old quarrel in a new light now, and our life together has proved that if the people of our faiths would but cherish the good that is in them instead of quarreling over the bad; if they would recognize, as I did once long ago, that the cross at least is common to us both—if they would do this, peace would come unto the world, as it has come into Miriam’s life and into mine.
THE END
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