"Without a doubt—and would have killed you in exactly the same way, and exactly the same place, but for my pads and the Sénéchal's bullets. Queer thing—they found the brute lying all in a heap in Coupée Bay on the very spot where Tom Hamon and Peter Mauger were found."
"Ay-y-y-y-y!" breathed Gard, with a long sigh of relief and a shiver. "I shall never forget him."
"Oh yes, you will—in time. Think of little Nance here. She's a sight better worth thinking of. And now, Miss Nancy, how much good news can you stand all at once, if you try your very hardest?" he asked, with a sparkle in his eyes that somehow seemed to set hers sparkling too.
"Oh madé, Doctor!" and the little hands clasped up on her breast, as was her way when greatly moved. "Not——?"
She dared not hope for so much—the wish of her heart—just an inch or so behind the desire for Gard's recovery.
"The cutter this morning brought over one we had feared was lost——"
"Not—not Bernel?"
"Yes, my child, Bernel, by God's good mercy! He was picked up by a Granville trawler, and lay there ill for some days, and could only get back by Jersey and Guernsey. He was to come along with the Sénéchal in a quarter of an hour—"
But Nance had fallen on her knees and buried her face in the bed-clothes, lest any but God should see it in the rapture of its breaking.
"Dieu merci! Dieu merci! Dieu merci!" she was crying, though none of them heard it.