"No. Would you like to see her?"

"No matter. I lost you. Where have you been?"

"Near here. Forget that; now I shall not leave you again for long."

"I am tired; I think I shall sleep."

And the light began to fade out of his eyes, and the same kind of dull insensibility, not sleep, crept over him again.

She left him at last in much the same state as she found him; and after a long talk with Mrs. Elton, who was at first a little inclined to be jealous of interference, but came round completely after a while, she left the jail and started for home.

It was a dreary walk, through the snowy roads and under the leaden-coloured sky. She had to pass through a part of the town which lay close to the river, where the principal shops and warehouses stood.

Passing one of the shops, or as they were generally called, "stores,"

she remembered some purchases she wanted to make, and went in. While she was occupied with her business, some loud voices at the further end of the store attracted her attention, and she was aware of a group of men sitting upon barrels and boxes, and keeping up a noisy conversation, mixed with frequent bursts of laughter.

The store was not one of the best class even for Cacouna, but Mrs.

Costello had gone into it because it had a kind of "specialite," for the articles she required. It was most frequented by rough backwoodsmen and farmers, and to that class the noisy party seemed to belong. Some little time was necessary to find from a back shop one of the things Mrs.

Costello asked for, and while she waited she could not help but hear what these men were saying. A good many oaths garnished their speeches, which, deprived of them, were much as follows:

"You did not go into mourning, anyhow?"

"Not I. Saved me a deal of trouble, _he_ did."

"You'll be turned out all the same, yet, I guess."

"They have not turned me out yet. And if Bellairs tries that trick again, I'll send my old woman and the baby to Mrs. Morton. That'll fix it."

There was a roar of laughter. Then,

"They are sure to hang him, I suppose?"

"First hanging ever's been at Cacouna if they do."

"I guess you'll be going to see him hung, eh, Clarkson?"

"I reckon so; but it's time I was off."

One of the speakers, a thickset, heavy-browed man, came down the store, stared rudely at Mrs. Costello as he passed, and going out, got into a waggon that stood outside, and drove away.

At the same moment the shopman came back and wondered at his customer's trembling hand as he showed her what he had brought. She scarcely understood what he said. She had turned cold as ice, and was saying over and over to herself, "The murderer, the murderer." She hurried to finish her business and get out into the open air, for in the store she felt stifled. She had never before seen, to her knowledge, this Clarkson, whom she accused in her heart; and now his evil countenance, his harsh voice and brutal laugh had thrown her into a sudden terror and tumult.

As she walked quickly along, she remembered a story she had heard of him, when and how she scarcely knew, but the story itself came back to her mind with singular distinctness.

A poor boy, an orphan, had been engaged by Clarkson as a servant. Much of the hard rough work about the kind of bush farm established by the squatter, fell to his share; he was not ill fed, for Mrs. Clarkson saw to that, but his promised wages never were paid. The lad complained to his few acquaintance that nearly the whole sum due to him for two years'

service was still in his master's hands, and though he dared not let Clarkson know that he had complained, he took courage, by their advice, to threaten him with the law. One day soon after this, Clarkson and his servant were both engaged loading a kind of raft, or flat boat, with various produce for market. A dispute arose between them, the boy fell or was pushed overboard, and though the creek was quite shallow, and he was known to be able to swim, he was never seen from that time.

This was the story which had been whispered about until Mrs. Costello heard it, and which now returned to her mind with horrible force. A murderer, a double, a treble murderer--(for was not Christian dying from the consequences of _his_ guilt?); she felt at that moment no resignation, but a fierce desire to push aside all the cruel, complete, _false_ evidence, and force justice to recognize the true criminal.

"Coward that I am!" she cried in her heart. "But I will at least do what I can. To-morrow I will let the truth about myself be known, and try whether that cannot be made to help me to the other truth. To-morrow, to-morrow!"

She reached home exhausted, yet sustained by a new energy, and told Lucia her story and her determination. To her, young and impatient of the constant repression and concealment, this resolve was a welcome relief; and they talked of it, and of the future together until they half persuaded themselves that to restore to Christian his wife and daughter would be but the beginning of a change which should restore him both life and liberty.

CHAPTER XIII.

The arrival of letters at the Cottage was somewhat irregular and uncertain. Mails from England and the States reached Cacouna in the evening, and if a messenger was sent to the post-office the letters could be had about an hour afterwards. Since Maurice had been in England, the English mails were eagerly looked for, and Mr. Leigh never failed to send at the very first moment when it was possible there might be news of him. Lately Maurice's correspondence had been nearly equally divided between his father and Mrs. Costello; and Mr. Leigh had wondered not a little at the fretted impatient humour which showed itself plainly at times in his share of the letters written in that silent and shadowy sickroom at Hunsdon. But Maurice said nothing to him of the real cause of his discontent--very little of his plan of returning to Cacouna; and it was Mrs. Costello who received the notes which acted as safety valves to his almost irrepressible disturbance of mind. He continued to send her, once a week, a sheet full of persuasions and arguments which the moment they were written seemed unanswerable, and the moment they were despatched appeared puerile and worthless. Still they came, with no other effect than that of making the recipient more and more unhappy, as she perceived how her own mistake had helped to increase Maurice's hopes, and to darken his life by their destruction.

One of these letters arrived on the very evening of Mrs. Costello's visit to the jail. It was shorter and more hurried than usual, and spoke of Mr. Beresford being worse--so much worse that his granddaughter had been sent for hastily, and, as every one supposed, for the last time; but it was just as peremptory as any former one, in declaring that nothing could or should prevent the writer from seeking for, and finding Lucia wherever she might be, the moment he was free to leave England.

Mrs. Costello read this note with some uneasiness. She saw that on the question which of two declining lives should waste fastest, much of the future now depended. If death came first to the rich and well-born Englishman, in his stately house, Maurice would be set at liberty, and by his presence at Cacouna would add to her difficulties; if, to the miserable prisoner who had been for so many years her terror and disgrace, and was now thrown upon her care and pity, she should yet be able to fly with Lucia and hide herself, not now indeed from an enemy, but from too faithful a friend.

In the meantime, however, since she had decided to make her marriage known to all the little world of Cacouna, she began to feel that the Leighs, both father and son, had a right to have the truth simply and immediately from herself. She said nothing to Lucia that evening on this subject, but after going to her room for the night, she sat down and wrote a very brief but clear explanation of her secret, for Maurice; adding only a few words of affectionate farewell, and an intimation that it was better for all direct communication between them to cease with this letter.

Next morning at breakfast she told Lucia what she had done, saying simply that she preferred writing to Maurice, to leaving him to find out the truth by more indirect means; and added that she intended going at once to Mr. Leigh's and making him her first confidant in Cacouna. Lucia could only assent. _Somebody_ must be the first to hear the story, and who so fit as their old and dear friend?

"If Maurice were but here!" she said, with a sigh, "he would be such a comfort, I know, for nothing would make any change in him."

Mrs. Costello echoed the sigh, but not the wish.

"If he will but stay away!" she thought, and said nothing.

She put on her bonnet as soon as breakfast was over, and walked slowly up the lane to the farmhouse. Lucia watched her anxiously, and many times during the next two hours went to the windows to see if she were returning, but it was after twelve before she came, and then she looked pale and exhausted from the morning's excitement.

She lay down, however, at Lucia's entreaty, and by-and-by began to tell her what had passed.

In the first place Mr. Leigh had been utterly astonished. Through all the years of their acquaintance the secret had been so well kept that he had never had the smallest suspicion of it. Like all the rest of her neighbours he had supposed Mrs. Costello a widow, whose married life had been too unhappy for her to care to speak of it. The idea that this dead husband was a Spaniard had arisen in the first place from Lucia's dark complexion and black hair and eyes, as well as from the name her mother had assumed; it had been, in fact, simply a fancy of the Cacouna people, and no part of Mrs. Costello's original plan of concealment. It had come, however, to be as firmly believed as if it had been ever so strongly asserted, and had no doubt helped to save much questioning and many remarks.

All these ideas, firmly rooted in Mr. Leigh's mind, had taken some little time to weed out; but when he heard and understood the truth, it never occurred to him to question for a moment the wisdom or propriety of her flight from her husband or of the means she had taken to remain safe from him. He thought the part of a friend was to sympathize and help, not to criticize, and after a few minutes' consideration as to how help could best be offered, he asked whether she intended that very day to claim her rightful post as Christian's nurse.

"I did intend to do so," she answered, "but for two or three reasons I think I had perhaps better wait until to-morrow. Mr. Strafford may possibly be here then."

"You will be glad to have him with you," Mr. Leigh answered, "but it seems to me that an old neighbour who has seen you every day for years, might not be out of place there too. Will you let me go with you to the jail?"

"Dear Mr. Leigh! you cannot. You have not been out of the house for weeks."

"All laziness. Though indeed I could not pretend to walk so far. But we can have Lane's covered sleigh, and go without any trouble."

Mrs. Costello still protested; but in her heart she was perfectly well aware that Mr. Leigh's presence would be a support to her in the first painful moments when she must acknowledge herself the wife of a supposed murderer--and more than that, of an Indian, who had become in the imagination of Cacouna, the type and ideal of a savage criminal. So, finally, it was arranged that she should be accompanied to the prison on the following day by her two faithful friends (supposing Mr. Strafford to have then arrived), and that in the meantime she should merely pay her husband a visit without betraying any deeper interest in him than she had shown already.

Mr. Leigh asked whether he should tell Maurice what he had himself just heard, and in reply Mrs. Costello gave him the note she had written, and asked him to enclose it for her.

"I thought it was better and kinder to write to him myself," she said.

"It will be a shock to Maurice to know the real position of his old playfellow."

Mr. Leigh looked at her doubtfully.