In the three days which had now passed since the murder, the minds even of those most nearly concerned had had time to rally a little from the first shock, and to begin to be conscious of the world around them going on just as usual in spite of all. Doctor Morton had been to a singular degree without relatives. An old and infirm uncle, living a long distance from Cacouna, was almost the only person connected with him by blood; it was to her own family alone, therefore, that Bella had to look for the deepest sympathy. But the whole neighbourhood had known her from a child; and in her great grief every one seemed ready to claim a share.

All the kindness and goodness of heart which in ordinary times was hidden away under the crust of each different character, flowed out towards the young widow, and as she sat in her desolate house, sorrow seemed to invest her with its royalty, and to transform her old friends into loyal subjects, eager to do her but the smallest service.

And in the midst of this universal impulse of sympathy, and of the reverence which great suffering inspires, it was impossible for the Costellos to remain apart. Their own share in the misery did not prevent them from feeling for the others who knew nothing of their partnership; and Lucia forgot to accuse herself of hypocrisy when she was admitted into the darkened room, where her once gay companion sat and watched with heavy eyes the passing of those first days of widowhood. No one would have recognized Bella Latour now. She sat, wan and half-lifeless, caring for nothing except now and then to draw round her more closely a great shawl in which she was wrapped, as if the only sensation of which she was still capable were that of cold. Hour after hour she neither spoke nor moved, until her sister, alarmed, and anxious by any means to arouse her from her stupor, implored Lucia to see her, to try to make her speak or shed the tears which, since she had seen the body of her husband, seemed to be frozen up.

Mrs. Bellairs had not been mistaken in hoping for some good result from Lucia's visit. At the sight of her a flood of colour rushed to Bella's deathlike face, and she half rose to meet her; but when she felt the long tender kiss which had a whole world of tender pity in its silent language, she turned suddenly away, and throwing herself upon a couch, sobbed with the passionate vehemence of a child. From that moment she was eager to keep Lucia with her. She did not care to speak, but the sight of one so associated with her lost happiness seemed a consolation to her; and thus, with her own heavy weight of uncertainty and distress, the poor girl had to take up and bear patiently such share as she could of her friend's. After the first, too, there came back such a horrible sensation of being a kind of accessory to the crime which had been committed, that the mere sight of Bella's face was torture to her.

In this way the day of Mr. Strafford's arrival and the next one, that of his first visit to the jail, passed with Lucia. It was not until quite evening that she could leave the closed-up house and its mistress; and never had a road seemed so long to her as that from Cacouna to the Cottage. Her mind, roused into feverish activity, recurred to the night when she had met Percy on that very road; she saw again, in imagination, the figure of the Indian--of her father, as she now believed--rising up from the green bank. She saw Percy, and heard his words, and then remembered with bitter shame and anger that the brutal creature from whom he had saved her, had nevertheless had power to separate them for ever. And to this creature her mother thought herself still bound! She grew wild with impatience to know the result of Mr. Strafford's mission.

CHAPTER V.

Lucia came with flushed cheeks and beating heart into the presence of her mother and Mr. Strafford. She longed to have her question answered at once, yet dreaded to ask it. They were waiting tea for her; and the bright cheerful room, with its peaceful home-look, the table and familiar tea-service, the perfectly settled and calm aspect of everything about, struck upon her disturbed fancy with a jarring sense of unfitness. But in a very little while the calm began to have a more reasonable effect; and by the time tea was over, she was ready to hear what had been done, without such an exaggerated idea of its importance, as she had been entertaining during her long hours of suspense.

Yet still she did not ask; and after a little while, Mrs. Costello said,

"Mr. Strafford has been all the afternoon in Cacouna. I have scarcely had time yet to hear all he had to tell me."

Lucia glanced at her mother and then at their friend; she was glad the subject had been commenced without her, and only expressed by her eyes the anxiety she felt regarding it.

Mr. Strafford looked troubled. He felt, with a delicacy of perception which was almost womanly, the many sided perplexities increasing the already heavy trial of Mrs. Costello's life. He grieved for the child whom he had known from her birth now plunged so young into a sea of troubles, and as he saw how bravely and steadily she met them, his desire to help and spare her grew painfully strong. If he could have said to them both, "Go, leave the miserable wretch to his fate, and find a home where you will never need to fear him again," he would have done it with most genuine relief and satisfaction; but he could not do so--at least, not yet; and duty was far from easy at that moment.

"Yes," he said as cheerfully as he could, in answer to Lucia's glance.

"I have been in Cacouna for some hours to-day and I shall be there again to-morrow. I own, Lucia, I have not unlimited faith in circumstantial evidence."

Lucia started, and her heart seemed to give a great leap--could he mean that the prisoner was innocent? A week ago she would have said that the burden of disgrace lay upon them too heavily to be much increased by anything that could happen, and now she knew by the wild throb of hope how its weight had been doubled and trebled since the shadow of murder had been hanging over them. But the hope died out at once, for there was nothing in her mind to feed it, and she had sunk back into her enforced quiet before she answered,

"Will you tell me what the evidence is, if you have heard at all exactly, and what you have seen to-day?"

There was nothing of girlish excitement or agitation in her words or tone. Mr. Strafford wondered a little, but at once did as she asked.

"The evidence appears to be very simple and straightforward. From the way in which the crime was committed and the body found, there is no reason to suppose that it had been planned beforehand. The mode in which death was inflicted showed, on the other hand, that it was not the result of a hasty or chance blow--but really a murder, though unpremeditated. Quite near to the place where the body lay, a man was found hidden among the bushes. His hands and clothes were marked with blood; he had by him a hatchet which had all the appearance of having been used to inflict the wounds on the murdered man, and a heavy stick which might well have given the first blow. His being but clumsily hidden is accounted for easily, for he was evidently intoxicated; and lastly, he is known to have been connected with a party of smugglers who used to land their goods on Beaver Creek, and who had reason to dislike Doctor Morton."

A deeper breath, a slight relaxing of the closed lips, were the only signs from either mother or daughter how this brief and clear account, riveting as it did upon their minds the certainty of guilt, had been endured as people endure the necessary torture of the surgeon's knife.

Neither spoke, but waited for what was to follow.

Mr. Strafford's tone changed. "I have told you what you will have to hear from others," he said; "and, without doubt a stronger case would be difficult to find. Unless something new should come to light, I do not think many people will even feel the least uncertainty on the subject.

But I do."

He paused, and then went on; not, however, without keeping an anxious watch on the faces opposite to him, lest his touch, however gentle, should press too hardly upon their quivering nerves.

"In the first place it appears that there is a man on whom, if this prisoner could be cleared, suspicion would naturally fall. This man, Clarkson, I dare say you know by repute far better than I do, who never heard of him till to-day; but he appears to have so bad a character that no one would be shocked or surprised to hear that he was the murderer.

He had also a much stronger ill-will against Doctor Morton than any one else, either Indian or white man, can be shown to have had. But yet there is such an entire absence of any proof whatever that he did commit the crime, that unless I wanted you to understand _all_ my reasons for uncertainty, I would not speak of him even here in connection with it.

"My next reason seems almost as shadowy as this; but it has considerable weight with me, nevertheless. It is, that I believe the man who is in prison for the murder has neither strength of body nor of nerve to have committed it."

He stopped as Mrs. Costello uttered a broken exclamation of surprise.

"You would not know him," Mr. Strafford said gently, answering her look.

"He has changed so much since I saw him not many weeks ago, that even I scarcely did so. They tell me that he has had an attack of fever while he was in the bush, and that he was but half recovered from it when he came back with the rest of the gang, a week ago."

"And since then," Mrs. Costello asked, "where has he been?"

"Not where he was likely to regain much strength. He and the other Indians have been living in one of the shanties close to the mill. It is extremely swampy and unhealthy there, and besides that, he seems to have been almost without food, living upon whisky."

Lucia shuddered still; but the wretched picture softened her, nevertheless. A feeling of compassion for the first time stole into her heart for the miserable creature who was her father.

"But that day," she said; "do you know anything of that day?"

"He seems to have been doing nothing--indeed I believe he had been incapable of doing anything--for two or three days. That morning his companions went out and left him lying on his bed asleep; they did not see him again till after he was in custody."

"Did you question him? What does he say?"

"He says nothing. He remembers nothing. He seems to me to have been suffering that day from a return of his fever, and besides that, he had had some whisky--very little would overcome a man in his condition--so that if he crawled out into the sunshine, and finally lay down among the bushes to sleep, it is perfectly credible that the murder might have been committed close to him without his knowing anything about it."

"But the hatchet? Was it not his?"

"Yes. But he denies--whatever his denial may be worth--that the heavy stick which was found by him, ever was his; and though it is a hard thing to say, it can be imagined that the very things which fasten suspicion on him may have been arranged for that purpose by another person."

"He does say something on the subject then, since he denies the stick being his? Did he talk to you willingly on the subject?" asked Mrs.

Costello.

Mr. Strafford answered her question by another.

"Have you courage and strength to see him?"

"Yes; if you think it well for me to do so."

Lucia caught her mother's hand.

"You have not, mamma, you must not go! Mr. Strafford, she cannot bear the exertion."

"You do not know what I can bear, my child. Certainly this, if it is needful or advisable."

"You will find it less trying in some ways than you perhaps expect," Mr.

Strafford went on, "and in others more so. There is nothing in the man you will see to remind you of the past, and yet my great reason for thinking it well for you to see him is a hope that you may be able to recall the past to him, so as to bring him back to something like clearness of comprehension. It seems as if nothing less would do so."

"What do you mean? Does not he know you?"

"I can scarcely tell. I do not know why I should not tell you plainly the truth, which you will have to hear before you see him. His mind is either completely gone, or terror and imprisonment have deadened it for the time. The other men who have been working with him say that he was sane enough when he was sober up to the time of the murder. Certainly he is not sane now. But that may well be a temporary thing caused by his illness and the confinement."

Mrs. Costello had covered her face with her hands.

"And you think," she said, looking up, "that the sight of me might bring back his recollection. But is there anything to be gained by doing so if we succeed? Is not his insanity the best thing that could happen?"

"I think not in this case. People seem to have made up their minds that he was sane enough, on that day, to be accountable for what he did; and if we could only recall him to himself, he might be able to give us some clue to the truth."