This little speech thrilled the listener. It was spoken in a calm, pathetic tone, and the last sentence was accompanied by such a look as carried a meaning deeper than any words. Words, gesture, look—none of these things had escaped the girl, but what particularly struck her with unusual significance was that, for the first time, her patient had addressed her as "Pauline."
Later in the day, when Pauline was alone for a few moments, she produced Zulma's letter and read it once more attentively. She could not disguise from herself that it was a noble letter, full of generous feelings and instinct with that sympathy which one true friend should testify to another on occasions of such painful trials. Zulma wrote eloquently of the dangers and anxieties which Pauline must have experienced on that dreadful December morning, and renewed her invitation to abandon the ill-fated town and take up her abode in the peaceful mansion of Pointe-aux-Trembles. "You are not made for such terrible scenes, my dear"—these were her words—"I could bear them better, for they are in my nature. You should be in my place and I in yours. I would thus be in a position to bear the fatigue of nursing him who is the dearest friend of us both."
This was the phrase which had puzzled Pauline at the first reading, and which perplexed her still at the second. It was on account of this sentence that she did not read the letter to Cary. What could Zulma mean by it?
"She is much mistaken," thus Pauline soliloquized, "if she thinks I am unable to bear the burden which Providence has laid upon me. I am no longer what I was. These two months of almost constant agitation have nerved me to a courage which I never thought I could have had. They have completely changed me. When I might have remained out of the town and gone to Pointe-aux-Trembles, it was I who persuaded my father to return to this house, and I do not regret it. I would not leave it now if I could. Much as I should like Zulma's company, and the benefit of her advice and example, I would not consent to exchange places with her."
Pauline glanced at the letter again.
"How curiously she words the letter about my poor invalid! She does not speak of him as her dearest friend, an expression which I would have expected her to use," here an involuntary tremour passed through Pauline's frame, "but she speaks of him as the dearest friend of us both. What does this mean? Was it written spontaneously, or on deliberation? It is a trap to draw me into indiscretions? No. Zulma is too true a friend for that. Alas! The dear girl does not know, cannot know, will never know the full bearing of the words."
Pauline herself did not then know the full bearing of the words written with no intention of conveying the meaning which she attached to them. Notwithstanding all the changes that had previously taken place in her character, her sweet simplicity remained intact, and it was this very ingenuousness which had prompted her to admit Cary Singleton into her fathers dwelling. When the young officer fell sick in the hospital at the Seminary, it was Roderick Hardinge who acquainted her with the fact, expressing regret that he could not be more properly provided for. She at once suggested that he be transported to her home, offering to be his nurse. Hardinge readily assented, and, after considerable difficulties, obtained the necessary permission from the authorities. In all this transaction the conduct of the British officer was manly, noble, and above board, without afterthought; or the slightest trace of selfishness. It is simple truth to say that, notwithstanding her sincere admiration of Cary Singleton, Pauline acted in the matter through motives of humanity alone and out of her friendship for Zulma. She looked not to future contingencies. Indeed she never stopped to inquire that any contingencies might arise. Had she done so, a sense of duty might have restrained her deed of charity. That duty was the love she bore Roderick Hardinge, a love which had never been confessed in words, the extent of which she had never been able to define to herself, but which existed nevertheless, and which it had been her happiness to believe was fully reciprocated. But the heart travels fast within nine days, and, at the end of that time, it is no wonder that Batoche's visit, Zulma's letters, and Roderick's moodiness should have disturbed the poor girl's soul. Man is not master of his affections, and there is a destiny in love as in the other events of this world.