"The name of Marie's lover, the young man who found the 'Witch's Stone,' was—Pierrot Desbarats! D-e-s-b-a-r-a-t-s. You are none other, Jack, than the great-grandson of Marie and Pierrot."
"Truly," said Desbra, "when I come to think of it, the name was spelled that way once upon a time!"
"Well, you shall not be a man of Destiny, Jack!" exclaimed the girl. "I won't have it! But as for me, that is another matter. We shall see if the 'Eye of Gluskâp' has any malign influence over me!"
IV.
Early in December, having just returned to Grand Pré from their wedding journey, Jack Desbra and his wife were standing one evening in a window that looked out across the marshes and the Basin. It was a wild night. A terrific wind had come up with the tide, and the waves raged in thunderously all along the Minas Dykes. There was nothing visible without, so thick was the loud darkness of the storm; but the young Englishman had suggested that they should look to see if the "Star" would shine a welcome to their home-coming.
"It is my Star, remember, Jack," said his wife, "and it will be guilty of no such irregularity as showing itself on a night like this."
"You forget, my lady," was the reply, "that the Star is now mine. The Marsh has the Star, and my lady has the Marsh; but I have my lady, and so possess all!"
"Oh, Jack," cried the girl, with a shudder, "there it is! I am sure something will happen. Let us sell the Marsh to-morrow, dear; for now that I belong to you I can no longer protect you from the spell. I had forgotten that!"
"Very well," said Desbra, lightly, "if you say so, we'll sell to-morrow."
As the two stood locked in each other's arms, and straining their eyes into the blackness, the violet ray gathered intensity, and almost seemed to reveal, by fits, the raving turmoil of the rapidly mounting tide.