George Tracy Marsh

“ One August evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel, and Fleur, again walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping with puppy awkwardness, Fleur’s progeny roved near them. The hush of an August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under low-banked clouds or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering floor, to the rim of the world. ”

“ CHAPTER XXV. During the tense days when the fever heightened and the life of Jean Marcel hung on the turn of a leaf, there had been no repetition of the visit of Fleur to the sick room. But so loudly did she wail her complaint at her enforced absence from the man battling for his life so near in the mission house, that it was necessary to confine her with her puppies at a distance. ”

“ She smiled wistfully, slowly shaking her head. “I fear you were very like a man, Jean. But you are going away, and I may not be here in the spring—may not see you for a long time—so I want to tell you now how proud I have been of you this summer.” ”