"I won't get sick," said Peter doggedly.
Father Albanel spoke sharply. "Keep to your cabin, my boy, and be as brave as Jame Clamart has been. If Mona grows worse, I will tell you."
Each morning after this he brought news of Mona to Peter. For a week there seemed to be no change. On the eighth day she was worse; on the tenth Pierre and Josette and Father Albanel were fighting desperately to save her life.
The tenth night came. It was past midnight when Peter crept softly to his window and opened it. With as little sound as he could make he drew himself through and dropped to the ground. He ran away quickly, the brilliance of the stars sending his shadow along with him. He did not stop until he reached the Gourdon cabin, and there he hugged closely against the log wall, his heart beating wildly as he waited. Above him a light glowed feebly against the curtain in Mona's room. He wanted to call to her; he puckered his lips and almost gave the whistling signal which she knew. Then he heard a sound, a movement of some kind, and stealthily he approached a lower window. He could see Josette very clearly. She was seated in a chair with her face bowed in her hands, and Pierre was standing at her side, gently stroking her hair. Father Albanel was behind them, his face white and torn with grief. Then Peter saw that Josette was crying.
A terrible fear gripped him as he drew away from the window. What he had seen could mean only one thing. Mona—was gone. He looked up at the dim light above him again, and in that moment his soul cried out against all those who had kept him away from her. He went to the kitchen door, opened it, and entered. This time he would scream and fight if they tried to keep him back. But no one heard him. Father Albanel's voice came to him faintly. He was praying.
Peter reached the stair and went up quietly. The door of Mona's room was open. A lamp, turned low, was burning on the table.
He approached the bed, scarcely knowing that he was moving toward it. His heart was crushed, his world crumbled and gone, for Mona must be dead or they would not leave her like this, and Josette would not be crying down below. Even his father could not have helped him now. Nothing could help him, with Mona gone. He stumbled to his knees beside her and his cold fingers twined themselves about the soft braid of hair that fell over the side of her bed.
A stifled, despairing sob broke from him then as he stared at the thin face that lay so still and lifeless in the pale light of the room. He had a great desire to touch it but a moment of dread made him hesitate. Then his hand crept slowly over the coverlet until it rested against Mona's cheek, and the sobbing in his throat was choked back, for the flesh he touched was hot. His heart thumped until the sound of it seemed to fill the room. Mona's eyes were opening! They were looking at him! And then——
Two thin, white arms reached up and encircled Peter's neck, and very faintly he heard his name whispered. He pressed his face down close to Mona's.
"I'd have come sooner," he apologized, "but they wouldn't let me in!"