"What a misfortune!" she sighed, wringing her hands. "Why, that boy had
an escort with him like a prince royal! The honest Dr. Mayer, such a
refined, generous young man; and Tom, the negro, my best servant, and
the truest! He saved me from an alligator once, and killed him with an
iron bar. He was severely wounded by the ferocious reptile, yet he
laughed at his pains."

I remembered the grin on his broad black face in the moment of death,
as I had seen him at the carriage window. He had laughed then also.

"And poor little Georgie?" she asked again, "James's playfellow and
foster-brother? Georgie's mother was James's nurse. How she begged of me
to take care of her darling, to bring him up well, to make a priest of
him! And how well I have kept that promise! I have made more of him than
a priest: he is a saint, and a martyr. Oh, _mea culpa_! _mea culpa_!"

When I had explained to her the circumstances which had made all
attempts at rescue impossible for us, and afterward futile, she nodded.
"I know it," she said. "On that evening I had not said my prayers. We
dined out late, and spent the evening there. I could not come home to
pray with my children, and I could not say my prayers there. I felt the
heavy load on my heart, and once for a moment, when I was not observed
by anybody, I heaved a sigh and said, 'God bless us!' It must have been
at the moment of the catastrophe, for my heart ached with some vague and
gloomy presentiment. Oh, me! our neglected prayer, and such a fearful
chastisement! Tell me! Who is that terrible being that watches us so
relentlessly, and if he catches us napping but once, hurls down those we
love into death and destruction?"