Marie half raised herself in my arms, and following his retreating form with her eyes, exclaimed—
“Leopold, our happiness seems to trouble him; can it be that he loves me?”
The exclamation of the slave had showed that he was my rival, but Marie’s speech proved that he was my trusty friend.
“Marie,” answered I, as the wildest happiness mingled with the deepest regret filled my heart, “Marie, were you ignorant of it?”
“Until this moment I was,” answered she, a blush overspreading her beautiful features. “Does he really love me, for he never let me know it.”
I clasped her to my bosom, in all the madness of happiness.
“I have recovered both wife and friend; how happy am I, but how guilty, for I doubted him!”
“What!” cried Marie, in surprise, “had you doubts of Pierrot? oh, you have indeed been in fault. Twice has he saved my life, and perhaps more than life,” she added, casting down her eyes; “without him the alligator would have devoured me, without him the negroes: it was Pierrot who rescued me from their hands, when they were about to send me to rejoin my unhappy father.”
She broke off her speech with a flood of tears.
“And why,” asked I, “did not Pierrot send you to Cap, to your husband?”