"He is dead?"
"Dead!"
"And Mdlle. de Roberval?"
"She alone, of all the party, is left alive. She lived on in that bleak spot in the midst of the Atlantic, while her nurse and her companion perished, and at last, with her own hands, she buried Claude. One other death must follow to complete the tragedy."
Cartier wrung his friend's hand in silence. He was no longer young; but something of the fierce rage which burned in La Pommeraye's breast burst into flame in his own, as he looked at the worn and saddened face of the once buoyant young adventurer. "God help De Roberval!" he once more thought, "and God speed the arm that strikes the blow!"
"But come below," said Charles, after a few moments' oppressive silence, "and see Mdlle. de Roberval for yourself. I wish no one but you to know for the present that she has returned to France. I will leave you with her, and attend to these Malouins, who have, no doubt, come to see what return I can give them for the sous they invested in the Marie."
Cartier could not restrain a start of dismay when he was ushered into the little cabin, where Marguerite sat awaiting him. He had last seen her, little more than four years before, a beautiful girl, in the full, radiant charm of budding womanhood. She stood before him now, worn and aged, with white hair and the face of a woman of fifty instead of a girl of twenty-six. But her figure was as upright as ever, and her carriage as queenly; her dark eyes had lost none of their fire—though their depths held the secret of her life's tragedy—and her voice, when she spoke, had gained in fulness and richness what it had lost in girlish brightness and gaiety.
Cartier controlled himself, and allowed no sign of pity or sympathy to appear in his face or voice.
"Mademoiselle," he said simply, "I welcome you back to France. If you will deign to accept my hospitality, my house and all that I have are at your service for as long as you will make use of them."
Marguerite thanked him with her old, quiet dignity. She never lost her self-control through all the trying scenes of her return to the land she had left under such different auspices—so little dreaming what her home-coming would be. When Charles had succeeded in getting rid of the merchants who crowded his decks, he conducted her on shore. Cartier, moved with fatherly compassion towards the young girl whose sufferings seemed more like legend than reality, insisted that she should stay with him and his family till a meeting with De Roberval could be arranged.