When Marie did think of the possibility of seeing Winslow at Pierre Island, a fear and trembling seized upon her heart at times, and she longed for the presence of her friend, Miss Gaston, the woman she loved as only a woman can love who has no near relative in the world but a father.
She learned from her father that Len Lawson, her old playmate of the beach, whom she had now to drive from her life, had been away for several weeks, consulting skilful specialists, and trying to get a remedy for his malady. The curse was upon him. Every passion and ambition of his former life was drowned in the awful fever of the old malediction. His love for Marie, his interest in his mine, and the wealth he had acquired, were forgotten in his efforts to get relief from the curse which was upon him day and night.
Not many days after coming home, while the novelty of it all was yet with her, she spent several hours at the bluff side of Pierre Island. She looked with a strange feeling of dread at the shelf in the cove from which Winslow had been rescued. Then she wandered on to the place where the Blue Vein lay under the mass of fallen rock. The opening had been enlarged, and there was every evidence of labor above where the tide reached. Otherwise there was nothing unusual in the appearance of the place. There had not been any labor done since Len had gone away, and the tide had washed out all the signs of human effort. Marie avoided the place with a kind of terror, as though the shadow of an impending fate was already over it. Finally the rising of the tide warned her that it was time for her return. Slowly she moved along the edge of the rising water, taking a delicate bit of seaweed to press, or examining a shell or mineral specimen. In this easy way she reached Bluff Castle at last.
Suddenly the attention of Marie was called to voices which came from the house. She stopped, and in a moment the color left her face, and, trembling, she sank upon a bench near the door. Her fear did not leave her. The sounds of familiar voices, one her father's, the other so well remembered, yet so changed, came to her with unnerving power. The hoped for, yet the unexpected, had occurred. She had never dwelt upon his coming, and of the possibility of being compelled to enter his presence unannounced, or with nothing to bring them together easily and naturally. He was near her, in her own home, yet she dared not enter. She had not the strength to rise and remove herself from the seat. Suddenly her courage returned, in the words which came to her from within. Her strength asserted itself and she was no longer afraid. She had pictured to herself the stalwart, strong Winslow of three years past, but the words that came to her now told the story, and aroused the woman in her, the heart of sympathy for the man she loved.
"Friend Pierre, it is good to feel the air here. It will mean life and strength to me soon. But for you I would never have climbed Island Road. It seems impossible that I have lost so much."
Marie, aroused all at once, did not see as she heard the words thus spoken, a pale, emaciated man, changed out of almost every semblance of his former athletic self, lying back in an easy chair. Only the firm voice and fine, honest eyes told the Winslow, but fallen so low.
In a moment she was the woman again, equal to him in the purpose of her obedient and sympathetic heart. She felt that he needed her, and then she entered. Gabriel had been found.