Père Michaux had had no suspicion of the plan: but he knew of one dark fact which might have, he wrote to Anne, a bearing upon it. Miss Lois had mysteriously lost, in spite of all her care, a sum of money, upon which she had depended for a part of the summer's expenses, and concerning which she had made great lamentation; it had been made up by the renting of the church-house; but the mystery remained. If the boys had taken it, bad as the action was, it insured for a time at least their safety. The priest thought they had started westward to join Rast and Tita, having been fascinated by what they had overheard of Rast's letters. The surmise was correct. After what seemed to Anne very long delay, a letter came; it was from Rast. The night before, two dirty little tramps, tired and hungry, with clothes soiled and torn, had opened the door and walked in, announcing that they were Louis and Gabriel, and that they meant to stay. They had asked for food, but had fallen asleep almost before they could eat it. With their first breath that morning they had again declared that nothing should induce them to return eastward, either to the island or to Anne. And Rast added that he thought they might as well remain; he and Tita would take charge of them. After a few days came a letter from the boys themselves, printed by Louis. In this document, brief but explicit, they sent their love, but declined to return. If Père Michaux came after them, they would run away again, and _this_ time no one should ever know where they were, "exsep, purhaps, the _Mormons_." With this dark threat the letter ended. Père Michaux, as in the case of Tita, took the matter into his own hands. He wrote to Rast to keep the boys, and find some regular occupation for them as soon as possible. Anne's ideas about them had always been rather Quixotic; he doubted whether they could ever have been induced to attend school regularly. But now they would grow to manhood in a region where such natural gifts as they possessed would be an advantage to them, and where, also, their deficiencies would not be especially apparent. The old priest rather enjoyed this escapade. He considered that three of the Douglas children were now, on the whole, well placed, and that Anne was freed from the hampering responsibility which her father's ill-advised course had imposed upon her. He sailed round his water parish with brisker zeal than ever, although in truth he was very lonely. The little white fort was empty; even Miss Lois was gone; but he kept himself busy, and read his old classics on stormy evenings when the rain poured down on his low roof. But Anne grieved.