While Miss Treherne was comforting the
bereaved girl, I talked to Mrs. Callendar. I fear that Mrs. Callendar was
but a shallow woman; for, after a moment of excitable interest in
Justine, she rather naively turned the talk upon the charms of Europe.
And, I fear, not without some slight cynicism, I followed her where she
led; for, as I said to myself, it did not matter what direction our idle
tongues took, so long as I kept my mind upon the two beside that grave:
but it gave my speech a spice of malice. I dwelt upon Mrs. Callendar's
return to her native heath--that is, the pavements of Bond Street and
Piccadilly, although I knew that she was a native of Tasmania. At this
she smiled egregiously.
At length Miss Treherne came to us and said that Justine insisted she was
well enough to go back to the vessel alone, and wished not to be
accompanied. So we left her there.
A score of times I have stopped when preparing my notes for this tale
from my diary and those of Mrs. Falchion and Galt Roscoe, to think how,
all through the events recorded here, and many others omitted, Justine
Caron was like those devoted and, often, beautiful attendants of the
heroes and heroines of tragedy, who, when all is over, close the eyes,
compose the bodies, and cover the faces of the dead, pronouncing with
just lips the benediction, fittest in their mouths.
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