Jean Jacques did not mean that they should. When he went away with his
book of philosophy and his canary he had but one thing in his mind, and
that was to find Zoe and make her understand that he knew he had been in
the wrong. He had illusions about starting life again, in which he
probably did not believe; but the make-believe was good for him. Long
before the crash came, in Zoe's name--not his own--he had bought from the
Government three hundred and twenty acres of land out near the Rockies
and had spent five hundred dollars in improvements on it.
There it was in the West, one remaining asset still his own--or rather
Zoe's--but worth little if he or she did not develop it. As he left St.
Saviour's, however, he kept fixing his mind on that "last domain," as he
called it to himself. If this was done intentionally, that he might be
saved from distraction and despair, it was well done; if it was a real
illusion--the old self-deception which had been his bane so often in the
past--it still could only do him good at the present. It prevented him
from noticing the attention he attracted on the railway journey from St.
Saviour's to Montreal, cherishing his canary and his book as he went.
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