The thought that Josephine was what she was intoxicated him; all the
next day time and eternity seemed glorious to him. The islands were
still ringed with the pearly ring of ice-floes, and for one brief spring
day, for this lover, it was enough to be yet imprisoned in the same bit
of green earth with his lady, to think of all the noble things she had
said and done, and, by her influence, to see new vistas opening into
eternity in which they two walked together. There was even some
self-gratulation that he had attained to faith in Heaven. He was one of
those people who always suppose that they would be glad to have faith if
they could. It was not faith, however, that had come to him, only a
refining and quickening of his imagination.
Quick upon the heels of these high dreams came their test, for life is
not a dream.
Between the Magdalen Islands and the mainland, besides the many stray
schooners that came and went, there were two lines of regular
communication--one was by a sailing vessel which carried freight
regularly to and from the port of Gaspe; the other was by a small
packet steamer that once a week came from Nova Scotia and Prince
Edward's Island, and returned by the same route. It was by this steamer,
on her first appearance, that Caius ought reasonably to return to his
home. She would come as soon as the ice diminished; she would bring him
news, withheld for four months, of how his parents had fared in his
absence.
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