Though mebby, if she is so blessed, she may feel the waftin’ of shadow wings beside her, and a nearer presence than the livin’.
Felix took the place of leader in the enterprise, and though it wuz delayed for a little time, it went on to success. Though the great heart that planned it lay silent in death.
Perhaps Genieve felt that his influence wuz still guidin’ her, that he wuz helpin’ the colony still; that bowin’ down in the presence of the Crucified, he brought gifts of surer success to his people than he could if he wuz still with them in the mortal body.
Felix wuz a favorite with the company, and though he had not Victor’s genius nor the native gifts of prudence and foresight that he had possessed, his long apprenticeship to sorrow and peril had made him wise and patient.
He wuz helped, too, greatly by the calm fortitude and Christian principle of Cousin John Richard and the fervid devotion of Father Gasperin.
There wuz a rumor that the Government wuz bein’ importuned by one in high authority, and wuz only waitin’ to learn the success of this venture, to send Government vessels over with the freedmen, with help to maintain the poorer ones for a year and get them started in their new life. But it might have been only a rumor. As I said, Victor’s death made a delay in the exodus, and it wuz durin’ those weeks of delay that Genieve received a large packet of law letters.
Her father had died in France, and Genieve had been left his heiress. A goodly sum had been left to this lawyer if he wuz successful in findin’ his child. Perhaps by reason of this the search had proved successful.
Genieve wuz a great heiress, for Monseur De Chasseny had no children by his French marriage—his lawful wife wuz dead. And the memory of the great love of his life wuz with him to the last. In a will made on his death-bed, he left all his large fortune to Genieve, “the child of the only woman he had ever loved.”
So said a letter left in the same package with the will.