"Man cannot help us, but God will!" and then she turns again to the beloved one.
He has wronged her, hated her, maligned her; no single throb has his hushed heart ever beat for her; but she has forgiven him long ago, if she has anything to forgive. She is warming that chilling heart against her own; she is watching that disfigured face which can never be disfigured to her; she loves him faithfully.
When Reed comes back from his search for a doctor, they find the old lawyer sitting by the window, with his wet eyes covered by his hands, and the woman kneeling by the bed, with the sick man's head on her breast.
"You must leave this place," says the doctor, in affright.
"No, I will nurse him best," she smiles.
So she has her way, good, faithful Margaret.
CHAPTER XXX.
A REVELATION.
Madame Hesslein, standing on the deck where Margaret had bidden her adieu—weeping in her lace handkerchief until it was wet, and waving it after her until it was dry, seemed so well worth losing a thousand pounds for, that the Chevalier Calembours quickly overcame his sincere regrets at the mad Margaret's departure into the jaws of death, and, flinging all uncomfortable emotions into the limbo of forgetfulness, he abandoned himself to the care of this fair creature who was left upon his hands.