With Josette so near, Peter was a little self-conscious and clumsy in his greeting. But Mona held out her arms, just as she had done last night, and pulled him down to her, and kissed him.
From that day the great fact in the lives of the two children was accepted in Five Fingers. Mona and Peter belonged to each other. And so sure was Father Albanel of God's intention in the matter that he felt no worry about Peter, in spite of the fact that the boy had come in fearfully close contact with the deadly malady.
"He will not catch the sickness," he said confidently. "God didn't send him for that."
And as day after day passed, and only good news continued to come from the Gourdon cabin, those who had at first doubted also came to believe; for Mona's coming back from death, and Peter's escaping the plague, were miracles like those which happened at the precious shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, and only God could have brought them about.
In two weeks Mona was out of bed and on her feet. And from that day, Peter noticed, she did not hold out her arms to him again, or ask him to kiss her. But her eyes were always soft and full of happiness when he was near her.
The last of winter passed, and spring came. May followed April, and flowers sprang up in the clearing. The birds returned, work began in the fields, and in the sweetness and promise of life Five Fingers rose out of the grimness of its tragedy.
One warm day when they had gone to the big beaver pond, just a week after Mona's fourteenth birthday, Peter said something that he was thinking, and didn't mean to say at all. He had been thinking it off and on for a long time, and the words slipped out of him before he knew it.
"You never ask me to kiss you any more," he said.
"Girls don't ask boys to kiss them—not unless they're sick," replied Mona, looking at him with eyes so bright that Peter felt every drop of blood in his body rushing to his face.
"Then I—I sometimes wish you was sick again!" blundered Peter.