For a minute or so, in that mysterious, ghostly radiance of dancing star-light and white snow, he stood holding the weeping woman in his arms.
'God sent me, though, did He?' he murmured at last. 'Then I must do His good pleasure, not my own.'
Paqualin spoke low, and quite softly, notwithstanding that queer crack in his voice.
'Look up, and take courage; there is better comfort than mine at hand. Your two boys are safely cared for already, and your husband is coming. The trouble is over. For you, at least, the morning begins to break.'
Then, as he heard the crunch of hurried footsteps coming over the snow behind him, he turned and cried:—
'Here, take your wife, Lepage!'
Paqualin moved aside.
'For the man,' he said, half aloud—'well—what he's a right to. Get back to your kennel, you hound.'
Now Eliza was sitting with her back against one of the rocks in the burrow, where the snow was lightest, and little Peter, closely wrapped in his mother's shawl, lay stupefied with sleep, with his head in her lap. As Paqualin turned round, she moaned out:—