"To think that it is you who saves me!" he again declared
eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease, for she was a
fine swimmer.
"It is the rest of the story," he said with great cheerfulness and aplomb
as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless, coatless, but
safe: and she understood.
There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance had
been reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least
that he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonder at
St. Saviour's, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitude must have
play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could have overcome the
Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom (so much in
his own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had been greatly stirred
in him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now he kept picturing
Carmen in the big living-room and the big bedroom of the house by the
mill, where was the comfortable four-poster which had come from the
mansion of the last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent.
Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficient
finery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of Jean
Jacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the young
Spanish maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque for a
hundred dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was given to
Sebastian Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune.
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