"Eugène, why should you put the Atlantic between us?" said Marie, and something in the expression of her face gave him courage to ask—
"Marie, I am going to Father Point next month. Will you come with me?"
"Yes, Eugène, with you anywhere," placing her hands in his, a look of perfect rest and peace coming over her sweet, care-worn face.
"Remember, Marie," he said gravely, "it is no small thing I ask—to give up your place at the opera, to sacrifice the applause of the world and the pleasing excitement of your life."
"I am tired of it all, Eugène, it is such an empty life."
"And I may be in Canada a whole year—think of it, a year away from London. You must consider all this, and, my dear one, I am not a rich man."
"But I am rich," she said laughing, "very rich, and I never was so glad of it before. Now, have you any more objections to make, for I am beginning to think you don't want me to go to Father Point with you after all."
That night at the opera Mademoiselle Laurentia, the critics said, surpassed herself, though, strange occurrence for usually one so punctual, she kept the audience waiting for a quarter of an hour. Never before had she sung so well.
Great was the indignation of Monsieur Scherzo, her manager, when next day she told him that after this month she would sing no more in public. He swore, he stormed, he tore his hair, and finding threats were in vain he wept in his excitable fashion, but neither threats nor entreaties moved mademoiselle from her decision. "Bah!" he said, "it is the way with them all, a woman can never be a true artist. Directly she rises to any height she goes off and gets married, ten to one to some idiot, who interferes in all her arrangements, and so her career is spoiled. I did think Mademoiselle Laurentia was above such frivolity. I imagined that, at last, I had discovered a true artist, one to whom her art was everything. No, I am again mistaken, and Mademoiselle Laurentia—why, she is not even going to marry a duke, there might be some sense in that, but only a beggarly artist. Bah! what folly!"
Some six weeks later, one sunny afternoon, there came up the Gulf of St. Lawrence a ship crowded with passengers bound for all quarters of the great Dominion. It had been a backward season, and even so late as the beginning of July great icebergs were still floating down the Gulf, huge, white and glistening in the summer sun, as they floated on to their destruction in the southern seas. However, the good ship "Vancouver" passed safely through the perils of storms and icebergs, and after a fairly prosperous passage of ten days arrived safely at Rimouski. There she paused for a few hours to let off the mails and two passengers.