Jack continued to be his mother's most constant adorer; he climbed often into her lap, and, putting his arms round her neck, "loved" her with his cheek against hers, and with all his little heart; he came trotting up many times a day, to stroke her face with his dimpled hand. Cicely looked at him, but did not answer. After ten days in the beneficent forest, however, her strength began to revive, and their immediate fears were calmed. One evening she asked for her grandfather, and when he came hastily in and bent over her couch, she smiled and kissed him. He sat down beside her, holding her hand; after a while she fell into a sleep. The old man went softly out, he went to the camp-fire, and made it blaze, throwing on fresh pine-cones recklessly. "Sixty-five in the shade," remarked Hollis. "This Northern air is always abominable. Will you make me a taste of something spicy? I feel the need of it. Miss Bruce,--Eve--Cicely knows me!" Eve looked at his brightened face, at the blazing fire, the rough table with the tumblers, the flask, and the lemons. Hollis had gone to the kitchen to get hot water. "She knows me," repeated the judge, triumphantly. "She sent for me herself." Paul now appeared, and the good news was again told. Paul had just come from Port aux Pins. After establishing them at Jupiter, he had been obliged to return to town immediately, and he had remained there closely occupied for more than a week. He sat down, refusing Hollis's proffered glass. The nurse came out, and walked to and fro before Cicely's lodge, breathing the aromatic air; this meant that Cicely still slept. Eve had seated herself a little apart from the fire; her figure was in the shadow. Her mind was filled with but one thought: "Cicely better? Then must I tell her?" By-and-by the conversation of the others came to her. "Hanging is too good for them," said the judge. "But wasn't it supposed to be a chance shot?" remarked Hollis. "Not intentional, exactly?" "That makes no difference. You may call it absolute chance, if you like; but the negro who dares to lift a pistol against a white man should not be left alive five minutes afterwards," declared the old planter, implacably. "You'd ought to have lived in the days of religious wars," drawled Hollis. "I don't know anything else carnivorous enough to suit you." "You must be a Quaker, sir! Tennant feels as I do, he'd shoot at sight." "Oh no, he wouldn't," said Hollis. "He ain't a Southerner." "Tennant can speak for himself," said the judge, confidently. "I'd shoot the man who shot my brother," answered Paul. "I'd go down there to-morrow--I should have gone long ago--if I thought there was the least chance of finding him." A dark flush rose in his face. "I'm afraid--even if it was an unintentional shot--that I should want to _kill_ that man just the same; I should be a regular savage!" "Would you never forgive him?" asked Eve's voice from the shadow.