"His little chapel and vestry, both built of wood, as you will remember, Conny, were burned down three years after our regiment left the city," continued Richard's letter; "and all the Records there perished in the flames; among other things, the volume of the Register in which our marriage was entered. But, most providentially, the successor of Latour in the poor incumbency, found among some of his papers, the signed copy--or rather I should say, the original of our marriage lines or certificate--which we had never received. _It is now in my possession_, and I have folded it inside a will which I prepared on the voyage out--a will, dearest Conny, in which, to make all certain for the future--as there are those at home, whom I doubt--I leave all I have in the world to you for life, and to Denzil and Sybil after you, absolutely. Your poor father and mother are interred not far from the grave of Père Latour, and I have ordered white marble crosses to be erected to the memory of the three. I shall sail for England a fortnight hence, in the steamer _Admiral_, and till then, shall renew in sweet fancy the days of our loverhood, by many a ramble about Montreal; by Hochlega, the picturesque site of the old Indian village, now its eastern suburb; the nine aisles of the great Cathedral; the gardens of the Convent of Notre Dame, and among the mountains close by--in many a shady walk and lane; and Heaven and myself alone can know how I miss you and our dearest Sybil, and how I am longing to return." It was signed "_Lamorna_." "My dear, dear Richard!" sobbed the wife, while her tears of joy fell fast. "All the places I mention, you must remember well," he added in a postscript; "and you may imagine how sad it is for me to wander alone where once we were so happy together." "He was to sail in a fortnight from the date of his letter," thought Constance, with a glow of pleasure in her heart; "he must now be on the sea! and in a fortnight from this, I shall see him again--my dear, dear husband--so kind, so good, so true and thoughtful, even to mark, unasked by me, the last resting-place of poor mamma and papa--and even of the good Père Latour. The latter act, is in itself, a compliment to me." Then an emotion of terror seized her, as she perused the letter again. What if the attested copy of those important "lines," their certificate of marriage, _had perished_ in the same fire which consumed the wooden chapel, the vestry, and its registers! What then would have been her fate, and more than all, by sequence, the fate and position of the children she idolised--her proud boy Denzil, and the beautiful Sybil, now budding on the verge of womanhood? A stigma--a stain--she could never remove, might have been on them, to the end of their lives; and her soul seemed to die within her as she thought of the peril--the narrow escape, they had all made!