Donald's father took the news stoically. His nature was not emotional. The relations between father and son were strained. Little was said on either side.
Donald walked about as usual. He had repeated to his immediate friends every circumstance of the tragedy. They fully believed him innocent of murder. This exoneration was of great value to him. From mouth to mouth the story spread that Donald fired in self-defence, and the latter found that all the faces he met were friendly faces.
What he said to himself in his own room every night, he said to his friends—"I regret the deed. I had no thought of touching Warren. When I saw his pistol flash in front of me, I felt in a moment that my life was at stake. I obeyed an instinct, which prompted me to get the first shot to save myself. I could get back to the States, but I'll stay right here. Let them take me if they can."
In vain his friends urged flight. He was inflexible on this point.
So, as we have stated, he walked abroad in perfect safety. He carried his rifle and his two revolvers, and possibly, in some quarters, this rather suggestive display may, in some degree, have accounted for the civility with which he was everywhere greeted.
The county authorities had not moved against him. The Provincial Government had not as yet intervened. A price was not yet set upon his capture. He was free to go and come as he chose, and yet he moved amongst those who had seen him take the life of a fellow creature.
Minnie's letter, addressed to his father's care, reached him. It moved him deeply. Since the tragedy he had frequently tried to write to her, but never found the courage.
He recognized that all hope of future union with Minnie was now impossible. He had taken a life. At any moment the officers of the law might be on his track. His arrest might lead him to the scaffold.
In his reply to Minnie, Donald described the tragic scene with which the reader is familiar, deplored the occurrence, but, with great earnestness, asked her to believe that he had acted only in self-defence. "I started out," he said, in one portion of his letter, "to go to church last Sunday evening. I had reached the door, when I thought—'Donald, you have broken a law of God!' and I had not the courage to go in."
We quote this passage merely in confirmation of our statement that Donald felt perfectly free to go abroad after the tragedy, and to participate in the social life of the village.