"Once I fancied I could never look at the prairie without a shudder, but of late I have been longing for sunshine and air, and shall perhaps be happier when this is over," said the girl. "It is a very hard thing I have to do, and I must tell you the whole painful story."
"We can understand that it must be," said Haldane gently.
"When I left home for Winnipeg I joined a second-rate variety company. I had inherited a gift for singing, and those who heard me were pleased with the old Irish ballads my mother taught me. So there was soon no fear of poverty, and I was trying to bury the past, when, the night I first sang to a packed audience in Winnipeg, it was once more dragged up before me. I came home from what the newspapers said was a triumph, and because one critic had questioned a verse of an old song I looked for a book of my mother's among the relics I had brought from the prairie. I found—this—instead."
Ailin Redmond ceased with a little gasp. And glancing at the dilapidated account book she touched, I wondered what power it could have had to change her triumph into an agony.
"I sat all that night beside the stove trying to force myself to burn the book, and yet afraid," she continued. "Perhaps we are superstitious; but I felt that I dare not, and its secret has been a very burden ever since. Sometimes I thought of the revenge it would give me, and yet I could not take it without blackening my father's memory. So I kept silence until my health commenced to fail under the strain, and meeting Mr. Boone at Brandan, where I sang at the time Mr. Ormesby's trial filled the papers, I felt I must tell him part of my discovery. Had the trial not ended as it did he would have consulted with Lawyer Dixon. Afterwards, though I hated Lane the more, I pledged Mr. Boone to secrecy, and kept silent until, when I could bear the load no longer, I told my trouble to Père Louis. 'If you only desire vengeance it would be better to burn the book; but if you can save innocent men from persecution and prevent the triumph of the wicked, silence would be a sin,' he said. Then I wrote to Mr. Boone and told him I would show the papers to Mr. Ormesby."
I opened the battered volume handed me with a strong sense of anticipation, and, as I did so, the girl shrank back shivering. Redmond's writing was recognizable, and I thrilled alternately with pity and indignation against another person as I read his testimony. Omitting other details, the dated entries, arranged in debit and credit fashion, told the whole story.
"Deep snow and stock very poor," the first I glanced at ran. "Received from Ormesby three loads of hay. Sure 'tis a decent neighbor, for he wouldn't take no pay. Entered so, if I ever have the luck, to send it back to him.
"Plow-oxen sick; horse-team sore-backed; seven days' plowing done by Ormesby, say—money at harvest, or to be returned in help stock driving.
"Fifty dollars loan from Ormesby; see entry overdue grocery bill."
"Is it necessary for me to read any more of these?" I asked.