Marie and Miss Gaston clung to each other almost as mother and child. In Marie's eyes was the story of her grief. In her friend's heart was the sad doubt that had come into it from the sudden departure of Winslow. From that day began the patient waiting of the mourning Evangeline and the long absence of her Gabriel.
"Sweet, sorrowing, mute, unplaining maidenhood."
As the coming of Frank Winslow to Pierre Island had been the cause of so many changes and important events in the lives of several individuals, so the period of his absence, on the contrary, was strangely quiet and uneventful. Pierre Island and its venerable inhabitant, seldom disturbed now by the signs of an outside world, felt the years pass away and realized no change.
Marie had been in New York for three years under the care of Miss Gaston. As all her winters for some time had been spent away from home, it was no unusual condition for her father.
Winslow had gone west immediately after his return to the States, so that when Miss Gaston reached the city he was many miles away. From the Rocky Mountains he had gone to the Klondike. During his stay in that region he had kept in touch with his friends in the East.
After the departure of the Americans, and particularly of Winslow, Len Lawson had changed considerably in demeanor, and when he learned that his rival was in a distant country he did not conceal his satisfaction in the least. He openly expressed it to Pierre. His manner otherwise was not so unpleasant, and but for the ever-haunting fear of the curse that would soon be upon him, his nature seemed to have undergone a change for the better. Pierre Island saw much of him, and had become a place of refuge, so to speak, when driven to a condition of despair. He was sure of the old man's protection and sympathy.
Frank Winslow found in a strange country, and amid the hardships and occupation peculiar to his mission there, an agreeable means of distraction from the serious thought resulting from the conditions which had lately involved his life. The blow he had received was a severe one, and had come suddenly and unexpectedly. In the toil and routine of his new life he set himself bravely to the task he had before him. There was a grievous wound to be healed, and his force of character turned him into such directions as tended to make him as quickly as possible grow into the new life that must now open to him. His previous active career had kept him remarkably free from woman's influence. Though but a young man, he had travelled a great deal, but with a strict adherence to the demands of his work, and so absorbed by it that he had been able to give it his undivided attention. Science had received his allegiance, to the exclusion of every other mistress.