'
'O Father Piret, if you could but--'
'Thanks, madame. To others I say, "What would you? I have been here
since youth; you know my life." But to you I say there was a past;
brief, full, crowded into a few years; but I cannot tell it; my lips
are sealed! Again thanks for your sympathy, madame. And now I will go
back to Jacques.
'We were comrades, he and I; he would not come over to the Chenaux; he
was unhappy if the routine of his day was disturbed, but I often
stayed a day with him at the Agency, for I too liked the silent house.
It has its relics, by the way. Have you noticed a carved door in the
back part of the main building? That was brought from the old chapel
on the mainland, built as early as 1700. The whole of this locality is
sacred ground in the history of our Church. It was first visited by
our missionaries in 1670, and over at Point St. Ignace the dust which
was once the mortal body of Father Marquette lies buried. The exact
site of the grave is lost; but we know that in 1677 his Indian
converts brought back his body, wrapped in birch-bark, from the
eastern shore of Lake Michigan, where he died, to his beloved mission
of St. Ignace.
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