"Then you are a kinswoman of mine?" she queried. "Pray do not kneel there, my dear. Come sit in the window and tell me who you are."
But the stranger did not move.
"I am your daughter," she said. "And—oh, do not swoon, my mother—Bernard is at the door, awaiting your permission to enter."
The widow closed her eyes for a second, leaning back in her chair. She recovered herself swiftly and clutched the skirts of the girl, who was now standing, ready to run to the door and admit her husband.
"What story is this?" she cried, incredulous. "I have no daughter. And Bernard, my son, has lain dead in a far land these weary months."
"Nay, dear madam," replied the girl. "Nay, he is not dead. But let me go to the door, and you will see him with your own eyes. He waits at your threshold, happy and well."
The older woman maintained her hold of her visitor's gown. "And who are you, to bring me word of my son's return?" she asked, with a ring of shrewdness and suspicion in her voice. Dimly, she feared that she was affording sport to some heartless person; for this sudden tale of her son's safety, brought by this gay young lady, had broken upon her pensive reveries like an impossible scene out of a play.
"I am his wife," replied Beatrix. With an effort, she pulled her skirts away from the clutching fingers, and sped to the door. Throwing it open, she admitted Bernard. The youth sprang to where his mother sat, and caught her up from her chair against his breast. With a glad, inarticulate cry, she slipped her arms around his neck and clung hysterically.
Five days after the arrival of the Heart of the West, the Cristobal sailed into port. By that time the story of her capture was well known in the town, and a crowd of citizens gathered on the docks to welcome her. Master Kingswell put her up for sale. In the end, he bought her himself, for something more than she was worth. Every penny of the money Beatrix gave to the brave fellows who had fought and sailed their ship so valorously on her eventful wedding-day. Only that rugged and wayward master mariner, John Trowley, failed to show himself for a share of the gold. He had not the courage to run a chance of another meeting with Lady Kingswell.
Of the future of Bernard, Beatrix, and the lad Ouenwa, something is written in the old records in an exceeding dry vein. Of the fate of the little fort on Gray Goose River, little is known. Some chroniclers maintain that the French overpowered it; others are as certain that the settlers moved to Conception Bay, and there established themselves so securely that, even to-day, descendants of those Triggets and those Donnellys cultivate their little crops, cure their fish, and sail their fore-and-afters around the coast to St. John's.