After a time of so much stress and excitement, there followed a pause--a
period of waiting, both for the mother and daughter at the Cottage, and
for the small world of Cacouna, which had been startled by the crime
committed in its very midst. As for the Costellos, when all the little
that they could do for the prisoner had been done, they had only to
occupy themselves with their old routine, or as much of it as was still
possible, and to try to bring their thoughts back to the familiar
details of daily life. Household affairs must be attended to; Mr. Leigh
must be visited, or coaxed out of his solitude to sit with them; other
visits must be paid and received, and reasons must be found to account
to their neighbours for the putting off of that journey which had
excited so much surprise in anticipation. And so, as days went on, habit
gradually came to their assistance, and by-and-by there were hours when
they asked themselves whether all the commotion and turmoil of the last
few weeks had been anything but a dream.

Beyond the Cottage, too, life had returned to its usual even flow. One
household, it is true, was desolate; but that one had existed for so
short a time that the change in it had scarcely any effect on the
general current of daily affairs. Bella went away immediately after the
funeral. Mrs. Bellairs had begun to despair of rousing her from her
stupor of grief and horror, while she remained in the midst of all that
could remind her of her husband; and, therefore, carried her away almost
by force to the house of some relations near Toronto. When she came
back, it would be to return to her old place in her brother-in-law's
house, a pale, silent woman in widow's weeds, the very ghost of the gay
bride who had left it so lately.

By Mrs. Morton's absence Lucia was relieved from her most painful task;