Over at St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks there was a Catholic institution where baby driftwood was taken in without question. St. Michael's was a harbour town boasting a summer colony. Women there, as elsewhere, paid for too much faith or unsanctified greed, and the institution was often the solution of the pitiful outcome.
Jo had repeatedly contributed to the Home. She had no affiliation with the church that supported it, but the priest of Point of Pines had gained her respect and liking, and for his sake she had secretly aided causes that he approved. Tom Gavot, for instance, and the St. Michael's institution.
"Come, Nick," she said presently, "we'll sleep on it."
All night Mam'selle tossed about on her bed trying to argue herself into common sense. When she came down from the heights her decision appeared wild and unreasonable.
What would people say?
Rarely did Jo consider this, but it caught and held her now. Her hard, detached life had set her apart from the common conditions of the women near her. She was in many ways as innocent and guileless as a child although the deepest meanings of suffering and sorrow had not been hidden from her. That any one suspected her of being what she was not, had never occurred to her. She had shrunk from everyone at the time of Langley's desertion, because she neither wanted, nor looked for, sympathy and understanding. She was grateful for the indifference that followed that period of her life, but never for a moment had she known of that which lay hidden in the silence of her people.
Poor Jo! What Point of Pines was destined to think was impossible for her to conceive, because her planning was so wide of the reality that was to ensue. Tossing and restless, Jo tried to laugh her sudden resolve to scorn, but it would not be scorned either by reason or mirth.
"Very well!" she concluded for the second time, "I'll adopt a child, a man child! No girl things for me. I could not watch them straining out for their lives with the chance of losing them. A man can get what he wants and I'll do my best, under God, to make him merciful."
Toward morning Jo slept.
The next day she cooked and planned as calmly as if she were arranging for an invited guest. All her excitement and fire were smothered, but she did not falter in her determination. She explained to Nick as she tossed scraps to him. Nick was obligingly broad in his appetite and tastes, bones and bits of dough were equally acceptable, and he patted the floor thankfully with his sturdy little tail whenever Jo remembered him.