There was still a subdued note to Roscoe’s manner the next morning. He was pale. He talked freely however of the affairs of Viking and Sunburst, and spoke of business which called him to Mr. Devlin’s great saw mill that day. A few moments after breakfast we were standing in the doorway. “Well,” he said, “shall we go?”
I was not quite sure where he meant to go, but I took my hat and joined him. I wondered if it would be to the summer hotel or the great mill. My duty lay in the direction of the hotel. When we stepped out, he added: “Let us take the bridle-path along the edge of the ravine to the hotel.”
The morning was beautiful. The atmosphere of the woods was of soft, diffusive green—the sunlight filtering through the transparent leaves. Bowers of delicate ferns and vines flanked the path, and an occasional clump of giant cedars invited us: the world was eloquent.
Several tourists upon the verandah of the hotel remarked us with curiosity as we entered. A servant said that Mrs. Falchion would be glad to see us; and we were ushered into her sitting-room. She carried no trace of yesterday’s misadventure. She appeared superbly well. And yet, when I looked again, when I had time to think upon and observe detail, I saw signs of change. There was excitement in the eyes, and a slight nervous darkness beneath them, which added to their charm. She rose, smiling, and said: “I fear I am hardly entitled to this visit, for I am beyond convalescence, and Justine is not in need of shrift or diagnosis, as you see.”
I was not so sure of Justine Caron as she was, and when I had paid my respects to her, I said a little priggishly (for I was young), still not too solemnly: “I cannot allow you to pronounce for me upon my patients, Mrs. Falchion; I must make my own inquiries.”
But Mrs. Falchion was right. Justine Caron was not suffering much from her immersion; though, speaking professionally, her temperature was higher than the normal. But that might be from some impulse of the moment, for Justine was naturally a little excitable.
We walked aside, and, looking at me with a flush of happiness in her face, she said: “You remember one day on the ‘Fulvia’ when I told you that money was everything to me; that I would do all I honourably could to get it?”
I nodded. She continued: “It was that I might pay a debt—you know it. Well, money is my god no longer, for I can pay all I owe. That is, I can pay the money, but not the goodness, the noble kindness. He is most good, is he not? The world is better that such men as Captain Galt Roscoe live—ah, you see I cannot quite think of him as a clergyman. I wonder if I ever shall!” She grew suddenly silent and abstracted, and, in the moment’s pause, some ironical words in Mrs. Falchion’s voice floated across the room to me: “It is so strange to see you so. And you preach, and baptise; and marry, and bury, and care for the poor and—ah, what is it?—‘all those who, in this transitory life, are in sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity’?... And do you never long for the flesh-pots of Egypt? Never long for”—here her voice was not quite so clear—“for the past?”
I was sure that, whatever she was doing, he had been trying to keep the talk, as it were, on the surface. I was equally sure that, to her last question, he would make no reply. Though I was now speaking to Justine Caron, I heard him say quite calmly and firmly: “Yes, I preach, baptise, marry, and bury, and do all I can for those who need help.”
“The people about here say that you are good and charitable. You have won the hearts of the mountaineers. But you always had a gift that way.”—I did not like her tone.—“One would almost think you had founded a new dispensation. And if I had drowned yesterday, you would, I suppose, have buried me, and have preached a little sermon about me.—You could have done that better than any one else!... What would you have said in such a case?”