Ten days went by, Dr. McLeod lingered at Lac du Sablier, and Janet was still in bed. Even in this life-giving air she did not seem to grow stronger. Sometimes, when the child was sleeping in its basket on the sunny porch, Mrs. Maturin read to her; but often when she was supposed to rest, she lay gazing out of the open window into silver space listening to the mocking laughter of the loons, watching the ducks flying across the sky; or, as evening drew on, marking in the waters a steely angle that grew and grew--the wake of a beaver swimming homeward in the twilight. In the cold nights the timbers cracked to the frost, she heard the owls calling to one another from the fastnesses of the forest, and thought of life's inscrutable mystery. Then the child would be brought to her. It was a strange, unimagined happiness she knew when she felt it clutching at her breasts, at her heart, a happiness not unmixed with yearning, with sadness as she pressed it to her. Why could it not remain there always, to comfort her, to be nearer her than any living thing?
Reluctantly she gave it back to the nurse, wistfully her eyes followed it....
Twice a week, now, Delphin and Herve made the journey to Saint Hubert, and one evening, after Janet had watched them paddling across the little bay that separated the camp from the outlet's mouth, Mrs. Maturin appeared, with an envelope in her hand.
"I've got a letter from Brooks Insall, Janet," she said, with a well-disguised effort to speak naturally. "It's not the first one he's sent me, but I haven't mentioned the others. He's in Silliston--and I wrote him about the daughter."
"Yes," said Janet.
"Well--he wants to come up here, to see you, before we go away. He asks me to telegraph your permission."
"Oh no, he mustn't, Mrs. Maturin!"
"You don't care to see him?"
"It isn't that. I'd like to see him if things had been different. But now that I've disappointed him--hurt him, I couldn't stand it. I know it's only his kindness."
After a moment Augusta Maturin handed Janet a sealed envelope she held in her hand.
"He asked me to give you this," she said, and left the room. Janet read it, and let it fall on the bedspread, where it was still lying when her friend returned and began tidying the room. From the direction of the guide's cabin, on the point, came the sounds of talk and laughter, broken by snatches of habitant songs. Augusta Maturin smiled. She pretended not to notice the tears in Janet's eyes, and strove to keep back her own.
"Delphin and Herve saw a moose in the decharge," she explained. "Of course it was a big one, it always is! They're telling the doctor about it."
"Mrs. Maturin," said Janet, "I'd like to talk to you. I think I ought to tell you what Mr. Insall says."
"Yes, my dear," her friend replied, a little faintly, sitting down on the bed.
"He asks me to believe what--I've done makes no difference to him. Of course he doesn't put it in so many words, but he says he doesn't care anything about conventions," Janet continued slowly. "What I told him when he asked me to marry him in Silliston was a shock to him, it was so--so unexpected. He went away, to Maine, but as soon as he began to think it all over he wanted to come and tell me that he loved me in spite of it, but he felt he couldn't, under the circumstances, that he had to wait until--now. Although I didn't give him any explanation, he wants me to know that he trusts me, he understands--it's because, he says, I am what I am. He still wishes to marry me, to take care of me and the child. We could live in California, at first--he's always been anxious to go there, he says."
"Well, my dear?" Augusta Maturin forced herself to say at last.
"It's so generous--so like him!" Janet exclaimed. "But of course I couldn't accept such a sacrifice, even if--" She paused. "Oh, it's made me so sad all summer to think that he's unhappy because of me!"
"I know, Janet, but you should realize, as I told you in Silliston, that it isn't by any deliberate act of your own, it's just one of those things that occur in this world and that can't be foreseen or avoided." Augusta Maturin spoke with an effort. In spite of Janet's apparent calm, she had never been more acutely aware of the girl's inner suffering.
"I know," said Janet. "But it's terrible to think that those things we unintentionally do, perhaps because of faults we have previously committed, should have the same effect as acts that are intentional."
"The world is very stupid. All suffering, I think, is brought about by stupidity. If we only could learn to look at ourselves as we are! It's a stupid, unenlightened society that metes out most of our punishments and usually demands a senseless expiation." Augusta Maturin waited, and presently Janet spoke again.
"I've been thinking all summer, Mrs. Maturin. There was so much I wanted to talk about with you, but I wanted to be sure of myself first. And now, since the baby came, and I know I'm not going to get well, I seem to see things much more clearly."
"Why do you say you're not going to get well, Janet? In this air, and with the child to live for!"
"I know it. Dr. McLeod knows it, or he wouldn't be staying here, and you've both been too kind to tell me. You've been so kind, Mrs. Maturin--I can't talk about it. But I'm sure I'm going to die, I've really known it ever since we left Silliston. Something's gone out of me, the thing that drove me, that made me want to live--I can't express what I mean any other way. Perhaps it's this child, the new life--perhaps I've just been broken, I don't know. You did your best to mend me, and that's one thing that makes me sad. And the thought of Mr. Insall's another. In some ways it would have been worse to live--I couldn't have ruined his life.
And even if things had been different, I hadn't come to love him, in that way--it's queer, because he's such a wonderful person. I'd like to live for the child, if only I had the strength, the will left in me--but that's gone. And maybe I could save her from--what I've been through."
Augusta Maturin took Janet's hand in hers.
"Janet," she said, "I've been a lonely woman, as you know, with nothing to look forward to. I've always wanted a child since my little Edith went. I wanted you, my dear, I want your child, your daughter--as I want nothing else in the world. I will take her, I will try to bring her up in the light, and Brooks Insall will help me...."
