"Surely she cannot have cared enough for him to feel the separation as she would have done if he had really been worth loving," Mrs. Bellairs added; and then they left the subject, quite forgetting that reason and love seldom go hand-in-hand, and that Lucia was still devoutly believing in two falsities: first, that Percy was capable of a steady and faithful affection, and secondly, that he must still have something of that affection for her. Even at this very moment she was comforting her heart with this belief; and the discovery that her mother's dearest friends showed no inclination to desert them in their new character, filled her with a kind of blind sweet confidence in that one whom, as she now thought, she had treated so ungenerously, and who did not yet know their secret.
In the parlour, meanwhile, many things were discussed. Mrs. Bellairs assured her friend that the necessary arrangements for Christian's release had already been commenced, and that Mr. Bellairs would see that there was not a moment's delay which could be avoided. On the other hand, however, there was strong in Mrs. Costello's mind the doubt whether her husband would live to be removed. The utmost she now hoped for, with any certainty, was to have liberty to be with him constantly till the end. Finally, she told Mrs. Bellairs of her intention of going to the jail that day and announcing her claim to the first place by the prisoner's sick bed. Mrs. Bellairs thought a little over this plan, then she said,
"It is impossible that in this weather you can be constantly going backwards and forwards between here and the jail. At our house you would be scarcely three minutes' drive away, and there is always the sleigh and Bob. You and Lucia must come and stay with us."
And to this plan after much opposition and argument they were all obliged to give in; Mr. Strafford and Lucia were called into council, but Mrs. Bellairs was resolved.
"You shall see nobody," she said. "You shall be exactly as much at liberty as if you were at home, and it will spare you both time and strength for your nursing. It will do Bella good, too; and if we can be of any use or comfort to you, it will seem a kind of reparation."
CHAPTER XVI.
The end of the conference was that Mr. Strafford started alone for the jail, while Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Bellairs went together to Mr. Leigh, to explain to him the new state of affairs; and after that, drove back to Cacouna, whither Lucia also was to follow later. Mr. Strafford could at that time spare but one day for his friends. He was to leave by the evening's boat; and the Cottage was for the present to be deserted, except by Margery.
Mr. Strafford was admitted with, if possible, even less hesitation than usual to Christian's room. Every one understood now that the prisoner was entirely innocent, and in the revulsion of feeling, every one was disposed to treat with all tenderness and honour as a martyr the very man who, if he had never been falsely accused, they would probably have regarded only with disgust or contempt.
Not that there was room for either feeling now. It was as if this man's history had been written from beginning to end, and then the ink washed from all the middle pages. What memory he had left, went back to the days when he had been a pupil of the Jesuit priests, and the traces of that time remained with him, and were evident to all. But all was blank from those days to these, when he lay in the wintry sunshine dying, and scarcely conscious that he was dying in a prison. When a voice out of that forgotten past spoke to him, his recollection seemed to revive for a moment, and he answered in English or in Ojibway, as he was addressed. At other times, if he began to speak at all, it was in French, the most familiar language of his boyhood, and sometimes scraps of the old priestly Latin would come to his lips as he lay half dozing, and dreaming perhaps of his life in the mission-school, and the time when he was to have been a teacher of his own people. Chiefly, however, he lay quite silent, and seemed neither to see nor to hear what took place around him. His face, where the hand of death was already visible, had more of its original beauty than Mr. Strafford had ever seen on it before; and as he came near to the bedside, he for the first time began to comprehend, what had always till now been an enigma to him, why Mary Wynter had loved and married her husband.