"And Donelle, before you, dear child, I beg the pardon and forgiveness of Tom Gavot."
"I wish he could know that you are what you are," Donelle’s eyes saddened.
"He shall, child. That, I swear. Next to Mam’selle," here, almost unconsciously Norval raised his cap, "next to Mam’selle, Tom Gavot shall know. Come, little girl, here’s home!"
And together they went up to Jo’s house. It was marvellous how they managed the great thing that had happened. Never outwardly did it overcome them.
The winter grew still and hard, the people shrank into their houses. There were trodden paths, like spokes of a wheel, leading from most of the houses to the hub, which was Dan’s Place; there were more or less broken paths reaching to the river, where, under the ice, fish were obtainable.
Tom Gavot just at that time was called to duty and left his father with money enough to keep him silent; and food and fuel enough to keep him safe.
Jo, with a growing content and happiness, cooked for her boarder, revelled in his society during the long evenings, and was perfectly oblivious of the stupendous thing that was going on under her very eyes.
Norval sent for books, many of them. Books of travel; Jo grew breathless over them.
"I can sit in this rocker," she often said to Marcel Longville, "shut my eyes, and there I am in those far places. I see palm groves and I hear the swishing of the sea. Mercy! Marcel, just fancy a body of water as long as the St. Lawrence and as wide as it is long!"
"I can’t," said Marcel. "And I wouldn’t want to. Water isn’t what I take to most. But I do like the palm countries, Mam’selle. They are, generally speaking, warm. Sometimes I feel as if I never would be warm again as long as I live."
While Norval read aloud to Jo and Donelle, he would often lift his eyes to find Donelle looking at him. Over the gulf of silence that separated them they smiled and trusted.
Norval wrote to his lawyer, instructed him to take legal steps at once, upon whatever ground he could, legitimately, select. "Leave my wife and me free," he said; "with as decent characters as our stupid laws permit. I don’t see why society should feel more moral if we are sullied."
But Norval did not write to Katherine. He left that for his lawyers to do. He did, however, send a pretty fair statement of the case of himself and his wife to Anderson Law who, at that time, was basking under Egypt’s calm skies, wandering in deserts, forgetting, and pulling himself together.