Chapter 22 - Page 2

quarters, this rather suggestive display may, in some degree, have accounted for the civility with which he was everywhere greeted.

The county authorities had not moved against him. The Provincial Government had not as yet intervened. A price was not yet set upon his capture. He was free to go and come as he chose, and yet he moved amongst those who had seen him take the life of a fellow creature.

Minnie's letter, addressed to his father's care, reached him. It moved him deeply. Since the tragedy he had frequently tried to write to her, but never found the courage.

He recognized that all hope of future union with Minnie was now impossible. He had taken a life. At any moment the officers of the law might be on his track. His arrest might lead him to the scaffold.

In his reply to Minnie, Donald described the tragic scene with which the reader is familiar, deplored the occurrence, but, with great earnestness, asked her to believe that he had acted only in self-defence. "I started out," he said, in one portion of his letter, "to go to church last Sunday evening. I had reached the door, when I thought--'Donald, you have broken a law of God!' and I had not the courage to go in."

We quote this passage merely in confirmation of our statement that Donald felt perfectly free to go abroad after the tragedy, and to participate in the social life of the village.