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."
"I will go then," she answered; and Lucia saw that it would be only
inflicting useless pain, to make any further objections. But she was not
satisfied.
Mr. Strafford saw her concerned and uneasy look, and said,
"It is an experiment worth trying, Lucia. If it does not succeed, I
promise that I will not recommend it to be repeated."
"But, Mr. Strafford, all Cacouna will know of my mother's going to the
jail--she who never goes anywhere."
"That has been the great difficulty in the way, certainly, but I think
we can manage it. The jailer, Elton, is a good man, and truly concerned
about the condition of his prisoner. He talked to me to-day about him so
compassionately, that I asked whether it would be possible for any one
residing in the town to be allowed to visit him. He said any one I chose
to bring with me should see him, and therefore there need be no gossip
or surprise at your mother going, first of all."
There was no more to be said; and each of the three was glad to let the
conversation drop and try to turn their thoughts to other and less
painfully absorbing subjects. But to mother and daughter all other
subjects were but empty words; memory in the former, and imagination in
the latter were busy perpetually with that one who, by the laws of God
and man, ought to have been the third at their fireside--who had been
for years a vagrant and an outcast, and was now the inmate of a
murderer's cell. Innocent perhaps--and it was strange how that
possibility seemed slowly but surely to grow in both their minds;
shadowing over, and promising by-and-by to dim in their remembrance the
hideous recollections of the past.
Mr. Strafford's words had thus already begun to bear fruit. As for
himself, the doubt he had expressed was merely a doubt--a matter of
speculation, not of feeling. Still, while it remained in his mind, it
was a sufficient reason for using every possible means of discovering
the truth, and scarcely needed the additional impulse given by his warm
regard for Mrs. Costello and Lucia, to induce him to devote himself, as
far as his other duties would allow, to the unfortunate Christian. He
was anxious to bring the long separated husband and wife together, not
merely for the reason he had spoken of, but because he thought that if
their meetings promised comfort or benefit to the prisoner, it would be
his wife's duty to continue them; while if they proved useless, she
might be released from all obligation to remain at Cacouna.