Thérèse was disappointed, but not more than her experiences as a squaw had long taught her to bear. The down-trodden are not much crushed when an expectation gives way. Her foes, it was true, were not to be tried for their lives, but they were still to be locked up, and punished in some sort later on, while she herself, an indispensable witness, would be well cared for till all was settled.
CHAPTER XV.
[THE SELBYS].
George Selby was notified at once, of course, that the inquiry into his child's disappearance had suddenly and unexpectedly revived itself, after so many years, with the prospect of solving the mystery, if not of restoring the lost one.
It was an old wound now, that sudden evanishment of the sweetest blossom which had shone upon their lives. His wife and he, each in pity to the other, seldom spoke of it, and therefore there appeared a skinning over or partial healing to have come; but it still bled inwardly, saddening, and oppressing with unspoken grief. In the fifteen years of their bereavement his wife had been brought down from youth and strength and beauty to premature old age. Within the last twelvemonths a change had come. As she had told him, peace and resignation had come to her, the sad peace of the mourners who resign their loved ones, believing it is well with them, though knowing they shall no more meet on earth; and her health had greatly improved. "Why, then," thought George, "should he disturb her?--revive the deadened misery and cause relapse? There would be doubt and anxiety while the inquiry was in progress, and, alas! there was little that could be called hope to look for at the conclusion." Therefore he said nothing to Mary, but he did not fail to present himself at the examination before the magistrate. It was a horrid idea that their innocent darling should have been murdered by Indians, though it was relieved by the consolatory thought that in all those years of mourning to the parents the child's troubles had long been of the past; and he said nothing when he went home after the first day's inquiry.
The next day of examination was one of the most painful George Selby had ever known. He shrank into an unnoticed corner when the box was brought into the court-room--shrank from it, but could not tear away his eyes. And then he listened to Paul's accusation of his Mary's nephew, and for the first time he divined the motive of the seemingly wanton and inexplicable crime. Oh! how deeply in his heart he cursed the detestable money of that domineering old man, who, not satisfied with having his way in life, must needs strive to impose it after death, working misery and soul destruction upon his nearest kin. He shivered and clasped his hands before his eyes when the lid was to be lifted from the box. He heard the drawing of the nails, the creak and giving way of each one in its turn, and then there was a stillness; but after that there came no sigh of horror, the air thrilled with a movement of disappointment, felt rather than to be heard, and he came forward and peered into the faces of the crowd. The one additional horror was to be spared him of being called on to recognize his child's remains in the presence of curious strangers.
He peered intently at the prisoners, one of whom had virtually confessed but a moment before. He noted Paul's amazement and confusion. He noted that the squaw by his side remained calm, save that there stole a look of mockery into her face, as she surveyed the court, and he felt sure that that woman was not a murderess. It was his heart which was on the strain, and enabled him to see and read the reality untrammelled by judgment's frequent errors, wrong deductions, and misinterpretations. He could discern that of which the professional experience of officials took no note, for the heart is clearer sighted than the head.
With them there was a juridical problem to be solved by pure reason, an indictment to be made, presentable before a judge and jury--a proposition that the prisoners at the bar were guilty of a specific offence, with evidence in proof. "Where is my child?" was the ruling thought which filled George Selby's mind. The squaw at the bar was the stealer. So much was proved by the witness under oath, and by the implied admission of her fellow prisoner. But she had not murdered the child, though perhaps it had been intended that she should; so much could be drawn from her tranquillity and the confusion of her companion. He felt that he must question that squaw forthwith, and after the prisoners had been formally committed to stand their trial, he obtained speech of her through the assistance of the police sergeant, who took care to elicit an assurance that the reward, advertised fifteen years before in a placard of which he produced a copy, would still be paid when the baby's fate was discovered.
"Mary," George said to his wife that evening when they met. "I have news."
"News, George? News of what?"