“It isn’t to get rid of you, then, Bondo,” Clarice explained; “but I read in the Book you don’t think much of, but it’s everything to me, If ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? So you see, I am a little selfish in it all; for I want peace of mind, and I never shall have peace till it is settled about Gabriel; if I must give him up, I can.”

Bondo Emmins looked at Clarice with a strange look, as she spoke these words,—­so faltering in speech, so resolute in soul.

“And if I’m faithful over another man’s,” said he, “better the chance of getting my own, eh?  But I wonder what my own is.”

“Everything that you can earn and enjoy honestly,” replied Clarice.

Emmins rose up quickly at these words.  He walked off a few paces without speaking.  His face was gloomy and sullen as a sky full of tornadoes when he turned his back on Clarice,—­hardly less so when he again approached her.

“I am no fool,” said he, as he drew near.—­From his tone one could hardly have guessed that his last impulse was to strike the woman to whom he spoke.—­“I know what you mean.  You haven’t sent me on a fool’s errand.  Good bye.  You won’t see me again, Clarice—­till I come back from France.  Time enough to talk about it then.”

He did not offer to take her hand when he had so spoken, but was off before Clarice could make any reply.

Clarice thought that she should see him again; but he went away without speaking to any other person of his purpose; and when wonder on account of his absence began to find expression in her father’s house, and elsewhere, it was she who must account for it.  People thereat praised him for his good heart, and made much of his generosity, and wondered if this voyage were not to be rewarded by the prize for which he had sought openly so long.  Old Briton and his dame inclined to that opinion.

But in the week following that of his departure there was a great stir and excitement among the people of the Bay.  Little Gabriel was missing.  A search, that began in surprise when Clarice returned home from some errand, was continued with increasing alarm all day, and night descended amid the general conviction that the child was drowned.  He had been seen at play on the shore.  No one could possibly furnish a more reasonable explanation.  Every one had something to say, of course, and Clarice listened to all, turning to one speaker after another with increasing despair.  Not one of them could restore the child to life, if he was dead.

There was a suspicion in her heart which she shared with none.  It flashed upon her, and there was no rest after, until she had satisfied herself of its injustice.  She went alone by night to town, and made her way fearlessly down to the harbor to learn if any vessel had sailed that day, and when the last ship sailed for Havre.  The answers to the inquiries she made convinced her that Bondo Emmins must have sailed for France the day after his last conversation with her.