These two passengers had been the cause of a great deal of gossip and attention on the voyage out, for they were both, in their different spheres, celebrated personages, and known to fame on both sides of the Atlantic. It seemed rather strange that they should land at a little out-of-the-way place like Rimouski.
"Oh!" exclaimed one of the celebrities, a little lady clad in furs. "Oh, Eugène, everything is just the same as it used to be in the old days, and look over there on the pier is M. Bois-le-Duc."
Yes, there stood the tall, venerable priest, his hair now snowy white, and his shoulders bent under the weight of years. But the good curé was energetic as of old, and his eyes gleamed with excitement as the ship approached. His hands were stretched out in welcome, and a smile of most intense happiness lighted up his handsome features, and, as the travellers stepped from the gangway to the pier, he went quickly forward to greet them, exclaiming, in his bright cheery manner:—
"Eugène, Marie, my children, welcome home, a thousand times welcome. Heaven has indeed been good to me. My heart's desire is now fulfilled."
EPILOGUE.
"Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
The fatal shadows that walk by us still."
Beaumont.
Far up on the east coast of Scotland, where the huge breakers of the Atlantic dash in angry tumult against the granite crags of that rugged shore, stands the castle of Dunmorton, a grim historic pile.
For generations it has been the home of the McAllisters, and is still little changed since the days of Bruce and Balliol, when armed men issued from the low, arched doorway, to work destruction on their enemies of the South.