The Heir to Grand-Pré

by John Frederic Herbin

THE RETURN OF GABRIEL.

"Sweet, sorrowing, mute, unplaining maidenhood."

As the coming of Frank Winslow to Pierre Island had been the cause of so many changes and important events in the lives of several individuals, so the period of his absence, on the contrary, was strangely quiet and uneventful. Pierre Island and its venerable inhabitant, seldom disturbed now by the signs of an outside world, felt the years pass away and realized no change.

Marie had been in New York for three years under the care of Miss Gaston. As all her winters for some time had been spent away from home, it was no unusual condition for her father.

Winslow had gone west immediately after his return to the States, so that when Miss Gaston reached the city he was many miles away. From the Rocky Mountains he had gone to the Klondike. During his stay in that region he had kept in touch with his friends in the East.

After the departure of the Americans, and particularly of Winslow, Len Lawson had changed considerably in demeanor, and when he learned that his rival was in a distant country he did not conceal his satisfaction in the least. He openly expressed it to Pierre. His manner otherwise was not so unpleasant, and but for the ever-haunting fear of the curse that would soon be upon him, his nature seemed to have undergone a change for the better. Pierre Island saw much of him, and had become a place of refuge, so to speak, when driven to a condition of despair. He was sure of the old man's protection and sympathy.

Frank Winslow found in a strange country, and amid the hardships and occupation peculiar to his mission there, an agreeable means of distraction from the serious thought resulting from the conditions which had lately involved his life. The blow he had received was a severe one, and had come suddenly and unexpectedly. In the toil and routine of his new life he set himself bravely to the task he had before him. There was a grievous wound to be healed, and his force of character turned him into such directions as tended to make him as quickly as possible grow into the new life that must now open to him. His previous active career had kept him remarkably free from woman's influence. Though but a young man, he had travelled a great deal, but with a strict adherence to the demands of his work, and so absorbed by it that he had been able to give it his undivided attention. Science had received his allegiance, to the exclusion of every other mistress.

After coming into intimate relations with Grace Gaston, and seeing in her those high qualities which pleased his manly heart, he was at once powerfully influenced. Everything tended to bring him more and more into a realization of her personality, and that made the result inevitable, so far as he was concerned. From their first meeting to their final parting he was affected. Such a feeling, whether love or friendship, is of a permanent character. He had interpreted it as meaning love. He had been powerfully moved by it. He had acted as the lover, and as the lover had at last come to her. As a result they both suffered, each in his and her own way, and were prevented in consequence from enjoying the full value which a friendship such as was possible to them would bestow. In the wilds of Alaska he felt the same powerful feelings which had moved him at Pierre Island. His experience gave it a different coloring in his life. There was no uncertainty in relation to it as regarded Grace Gaston. Time was needed to soften the effect of the disappointment upon his life, which had come through her. So he was glad that the work which he had in hand would require not a few years to accomplish.

Grace Gaston found in Marie the development of a womanhood of a pure and retiring nature. Her wonderfully sensitive heart demanded certain conditions to satisfy it. As she broke away from the ties of youth, a few years wrought great changes in her. She ever retained her shyness. A quiet retirement, except to those in whom she placed implicit faith, and a modesty which no state of her life could eradicate or alter, were ever the qualities to characterize her. In her everyday life she was strong of character and purpose. Warm of heart, and of firm hope, she grew to riper womanhood capable of any sacrifice for those of her intimate life. With her mental and moral growth was also the beauty of face and form which, never brilliant, was nevertheless of that high type which commands admiration and derives its strength from unaffected native loveliness. Her womanhood was of that pure quality seen only in the reposeful face and the half melancholy, languid relaxation of form utterly unconscious of itself.

To Grace Gaston every day that came found in her heart some hope for the change in the relations that existed between Winslow and her loved companion, Marie. It was the regret of her existence that through her unwitting action she had been the means of separating these two persons. She had come in the way of Marie's love. She had interrupted the course of events which she fully believed would have opened Winslow's heart to a strong attachment for the Acadian girl. For this act of hers she could never rest content with herself until she saw these two friends returned to each other, and the original state of affairs restored as she had found them when she had arrived at Pierre Island, or just before she had seen Winslow at Blomidon. Marie, she believed, was the real and true object of his life. She held to this idea as an intuition, and she had all faith in the ultimate result. She longed for the final restoration of the picture which she had rudely marred. Her own happiness depended on it. She read the force of Winslow's character. She knew the heart of Marie, and she knew the qualities which had endeared her to herself. In pursuance of this idea, and in acting for its end, she did not see or realize all the results of her efforts. While she exerted every womanly tact to make him understand what had taken place in Marie's life, and of the wonderful development in her personality, she failed to see the impression she made on Winslow's mind in regard to herself. He found her taking a higher and better place in his life than he had been able to give her at first. She rose steadily in his estimation, and though she knew it not, she often left with him all the pain and all the regrets which he suffered on learning the true state of her heart. As to Marie, she was the same to him as she was when he left Pierre Island. He could not change the picture of her in his mind. Shy, gentle, and in the first blush of womanhood, wonderfully beautiful, he remembered, and with a strange light in her eyes which he had seen but a few times,—this was the recollection of the daughter of his friend Pierre, and this only when he gave her a thought.