The figure upon the bed, half-risen, worked its lips and then fell back, and the little maid raised her voice and screamed again and again in mortal terror.
It brought Rette running from where she had waited in the trading-room.
She raised him, and her face was red with rage.
“What have you done! You evil cat! What have you done to the man?”
But McElroy's breast had heaved with a great breath, sweet as the wind over a harvest field to a tired man, and he looked up at Rette with eyes that seemed to be suddenly flooded with life.
“Done?” he whispered; “done, Rette? The child has given me salvation!” And then he held out a shaking, thin hand.
“Come here,” he said softly; “come here.”
Fearful, trembling, tear-stained Francette crept back, and the factor took both her small hands in a tender clasp:
“I thank you, little one,” he said, “from my heart I thank you,—there is nothing to forgive. We are all sinners through the only bit of Heaven we possess,—love. Go, little one, and cease this crying. Know that I shall sleep this night in a mighty peace. You have given me—life!”