There was corn to pop, and candy to make. There were boxes to unpack, and goodies to eat; so was it any wonder that Joyce and her poor affairs should be relegated to a place outside this Eden?

Then, too, Jock complicated matters. He was shameless in his mirth and jokes. Even the stranger-lady with her wonderful aloofness could not daunt him, but Billy fiercely resented his attentions to the girl for whom he, Billy, had forsaken all else.

To leave the field to Jock was beyond the strength of mere man, so they stayed it out together, and left the bungalow in company just as the clock struck twelve.

It was then that the events of the past forty-eight hours began most to tell upon Billy. His exhausted nerves played him false, and cried out their desperate state.

As he and Jock left the warm, scented room behind them, and faced the white, still cold of an apparently dead St. Ange, the boy turned a drawn face upon Jock, and cried tremblingly, "Say, you better—keep—yer—hands—off!" Jock stood still, and returned Billy's agonized stare with one equally grim.

"I've just reached that conclusion myself, Billy," he said, with every trace of his past mirth gone.

Billy was hoisted on his own petard.

Hatred fled before the sympathy he felt flowing from Jock to him. He wanted to cry; wanted to fling himself upon his companion and "own up," but Jock anticipated all his emotions.

"See here, kid," he said in a voice new to St. Ange's knowledge of Jock; "you're not the fellow to grudge a poor devil an hour or so of heaven. There's the hope of an eternity of it for you; but for me there's going to be only—the memory of this hour. Shake hands, old man, and take this from me, straight. Keep yourself fit to touch. Lay hold of that and never let go. The more you care, the more you'll curse yourself, if you don't. It's the only decent offering a man can take to a woman. Everything else he can hope to gain afterward. A place for her, money, and all the rest; but if he goes to her with dirty hands and a heart full of shame, nothing can make up for it—nothing!

"Billy—I'd give you all I ever hoped to have here or hereafter if I could begin to-night where you are—and with the power to want to keep straight."

Billy shivered and looked dumbly, pathetically into the sad face above him. He had nothing to say. When Jock next spoke he was more like himself.

"Billy, will you see to a little business for me, and keep mum?"

This was quite in the line of the over-burdened Billy, and he accepted off-hand.

"I may—go—into camp before Christmas."

"Don't yer!" advised the boy magnanimously. "I ain't ever going to care again. You can stay here." Jock forbore to smile, but he laid his hand on Billy's shoulder.

"There's two big stacks of young pine trees up to my shack done round in bagging and ticketed to a place down the State. They're Christmas trees for poor kids, and I want you to see to getting them off for me to-morrow or next day, and if Tom Smith airs any remarks, you let on as how they hailed from the bungalow; for that's God's truth, when all's told."

"They'll go, Jock, you bet!" Billy gulped.

Curiosity was dead within him. Human suffering gave him an insight that soared above idle questioning.

"And Billy, there's another thing. I want you to go to Gaston's shack; tote water and wood for Joyce—and keep your mouth shut. And lay this by in your constitution. Gaston is a man so far above anything God ever created round here, that you can't understand him, but you can try to chase off the dirty insects that want to sting him. Catch on?"

"Yes"; murmured Billy, while unfulfilled duty clutched his vitals with remorse.

"I'm—I'm going up to Gaston's to-morrow," he said.

"And now, you old rip," Filmer shook off his strange mood, "walk up to a fellow's bunk with him. It's good to keep clean company when you can—and for as long as you can."

"Shall—shall I stay all night with you?"

Billy asked this doubtfully from the new instinct that was stirring within him. For an instant a gleam of pleasure lighted Filmer's face. It almost seemed like a yearning, then he said roughly:

"No, get home! You're afraid? If you are I'll turn back."

"What you take me for?" Billy sniffed scornfully, and then they parted company.

* * * * *

It was just when the hands of the clock in Drew's study pointed to half-past twelve, that the young master, sitting before the glowing logs, bestirred himself preparatory to turning in for the night.

A satisfied feeling had kept him up after the others had bade good night. He always enjoyed the anticlimax of pleasure, and the day had been a happy one.

He felt well. The companionship of the widowed wife of his closest friend, added interest to the new life in the woods. She had brought news and had awakened memories, but she had timed the Past and the Present to perfect measure. At last he could hope that the old wound was healed and that he could live among his people—his people! the thought thrilled him—with purpose and content. The rough men and women about him were drawing closer. He knew it in the innermost places of his heart. He was brightening their lives. He was holding their children for them, and opening a way for them to seek higher paths. It would all come out as he desired. It was a splendid field of work that had been given him—and he had rebelled so in his ignorance!

How he wished that Philip Dale could have lived to see and know. Of all the men whom he had known, Dale was the one man who could have comprehended this opening for service. What a noble fellow he had been! How his personality and charm struck one at the first glance. He had been one of those men who claimed friends as they came his way, without pledge of time or intimacy. He knew what was his own in life, and gripped it without question or explanation. He had been the first to understand Drew's ambition, so different from the ones of the social set in which they both moved.

"You'll always find me at your elbow, Drew," he had said, "in any scheme you start." But when the time came—Dale had slipped out of life as bravely and cheerfully as he had always lived. "And he had his own deep trouble," Drew mused as he prepared to bank the fire; "he never talked about it; but it made him what he was. One must go through some sort of fire to be of real service."

A light tap on the door startled him. He had been, in thought, far, far from St. Ange.

"Come!"

The door opened slowly and Ruth Dale entered.

She was all in white—a soft, long, trailing gown. Her hair had been loosened from the coronet, and fell in two shining braids over her shoulders. She looked very girlish as she came to the fire and dropped into a deep chair.

"Please put on more logs," she said softly. "Father Confessor, I've come to confess." There was something under the playfulness that touched Drew. "I told Connie that I wanted to talk to you about a plan of mine; well, so it is, but I want you to put the stamp of your sage approval upon it."

Drew shook his head.

"Hardly that," he said with a laugh, "but I'm willing to plot with you."

"I always think of you now," Ruth Dale continued, leaning toward the crackling logs, and holding her little benumbed hands open to the heat, "as 'the man who lives in his house by the side of the road, and is a friend to man'. Ralph, I need a friend! I must have one or I shall fail in that which I have set myself to do."

There was no lightness in the woman's manner now. She looked tragic; almost desperate.

Ralph Drew waited for her to go on. He was prepared to follow, but he could not lead.

Her youthfulness of appearance struck him now as it often had before; but the worn look in the eyes emphasized it to-night.

"You look tired, Ruth," he said kindly; "won't to-morrow—or"—for he saw it was well on toward one o'clock—"later in the day do?"

"Unless you are too weary to bide with me one little hour?" she replied wistfully; "it had better be now."

"You know what an owl I am, Ruth. With returning health my old habits seem to gain strength. I sleep more satisfactorily if I do it after midnight." He settled back comfortably in his chair, and the fire, encouraged by several small logs, rose to the occasion.

"I've been thinking about—Philip to-night."

"Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun for you—and me, Ruth."

"Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years—never before he was married?"

"No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and ready friendship among people who are here for only a short life. Others can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the Master seems to have equipped them."

"Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?"

"Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own personality, of which he gave lavishly."

The woman bending toward the fire, shivered, and as her head sank lower, one shining braid of hair dropped forward, shielding her face.

"Ralph—I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the—hardest that ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put. He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength to be beside her when all was done.

"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for himself—I have never been able to begin until—to-night. He said—he had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one—now he is gone.

"I must do as he would have me do—I see the justice, if the end is to be obtained, but thank God, I, who loved him—can still love him—and he has been dead a year!"

The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friendship, a blind comfort and assurance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance, and said quietly:

"I am sure where you loved, there was much to love."

"Yes; yes; that is true; and I begin to think the nobility of it all lay in his unconsciousness of the splendid character he builded so patiently and laboriously out of all the wreck.

"Philip had a brother, Ralph! His name was never spoken. He was two years older than Philip, and as different as it was possible for a brother to be.

"John was all strength and concentration; Philip all brightness and charm—in the beginning! Their mother adored Philip; she never understood John, and yet he was a good son, brave and faithful. But he could not show his nature—it lay so far below the surface. It was always easy for Philip. His charm attracted nearly everyone. My father always liked John better. He said there was splendid power in him, and—I must keep nothing from you, Ralph—I loved John—loved him, oh! how I loved him. I pitied him because he could not win what should have been his—I loved him for myself, and for all the others who were too dull to realize his worth. It was like mother love and all the rest, in one."

"Yes; the most God-like love of all. Only women know it, I fancy," Drew murmured.

"And then"; the agonized eyes seemed to plead even while they confessed, "then the awful thing happened. John took—he stole many thousands of dollars from men who trusted and honoured him."

"Ruth!"

"I could never have believed it, but he told me so himself. To the day of his death my father believed the half had never been told, but how could I think that, when John told me himself that he was guilty? Father was a judge—he was to have been the judge before whom John Dale was tried, but they relieved him of that horrible duty. John Dale was sentenced to five years—in prison! They said it was a light sentence."

"My God! Poor Phil! How terrible for you all!"

"Don't! don't!" Ruth Dale put out her hands as if warding off a blow. "Haven't you guessed? Can you not think?"

Drew shook his head slowly. He did not seem to be able to think at all.

"Mrs. Dale died soon after. She had a weak heart—it killed her. Philip was everything to her—he was heavenly good in his attention and devotion. Somehow, I wonder what you will think of me, but suddenly I became possessed with a passion for making happier them whom John had blighted. I grappled with my own love—I knew it would kill me if I let it gain power over me. I knew I never could be anything to John—I was not the sort of woman, Ralph, who could love the sinner—forgetting the sin. I could forgive—I thought I could—but I remembered all the more sharply.

"Philip had always loved me. I saw my way. I would ignore the stigma on the family, I would marry Philip and carry what joy I could to him and his mother. My father tried to restrain me. He called me martyr, sacrifice, and all the rest, but I married—and I know I took comfort into poor Mrs. Dale's life, and—I never doubted what I did for Philip. But—" Ruth whispered the horrible secret—"John Dale took the money for—Philip! He never wanted it for himself. He never used one dollar of it. It was Philip who ran the family honour, and his own, into danger—he made it seem to John that to tide him over the critical hour would be to save them all and bring no harm. But he was wrong. The crash came. John never cringed under the blow. To his simple nature the mere act was enough. He did not try to shield himself by one word of explanation—he went away!"

Drew's throat and eyes burned. He seemed to know all this like an oft-told tale that still had power to awe and control him.

"Then the years of agonized consecration began for Philip. I never knew until a week before his death, but the memory scorches into my soul day by day now.

"You see I thought it was love for his brother, and the shame, that had changed Philip—and that endeared him to me. All the lightness and carelessness of manner departed. A great, strong, tenderness took their place. But you know, it was so that he came into your life. He had a wide sympathy and charity, for all—oh! how it drew people to him. But think of his suffering—alone and through all those years!

"The money that was John's ruin was the force that brought success to Philip. You see—he could not explain—at least he thought he could not, he was too cowardly—and the knowledge spurred him on. Wealth flowed in and in. He paid, and with interest, all that had been taken. How the world praised him—and how he suffered as they applauded him! He gave great sums to charity—mostly to those charities that mitigate the misery of—the outcasts. Men and women who come under the law. Can you understand?"

"Yes! yes!" Drew's head was buried in his thin hands. His voice was full of anguish.

"They used to come to him, those sad creatures,—and he never turned them away. I have seen and heard them bless him as they knelt beside him. He helped them so wisely because—oh! because he was—one of them, and they never knew! Then the disease came—the cancer. I think he welcomed it—it was so sure to open the door for him—and I think he even loved the suffering as a kind of expiation.

"Never once did a murmur escape him of impatience or regret. It was he who cheered us. It was he who stood by my father's death-bed and comforted him, and strengthened me. Always cheerful, always helpful until—just before he went. When he knew the days were few—when the coward in him—his last enemy—died, he told me everything.

"He said—" a sob choked the words—"that I must find—John. I must lay waste the beautiful memory of him. Show the coward who had not been able to stand before men! I must redeem the past as best I could. I must begin with you—the friend he most loved—for you must help me find—John."

Ralph Drew rose weakly to his feet. Something had gone out of him. Something that he groped after, but could not grasp. He felt as if he and the stricken woman before him were lost upon a black and dangerous road. Their only salvation was to cling together spiritually and bodily. He caught the back of her chair for support, and bent over her.

"Is there no one, who kept in touch with—the brother? Was he utterly forsaken? God help him!"

"They said it was his desire. But there was one—I never knew who it was; that was part of the mystery—but some one claimed and claimed money for him, for John. I knew sums of money were paid regularly, I used to think it was another of Philip's charities—but I know now that there was a constant lash laid upon him. Oh! if they had only known all.

"Ralph, Philip left nearly all his fortune to his brother. There is only my portion reserved for me. So you see I must find him. I was left sole executor."

"I will help you, Ruth."

"I was sure you would. Philip spoke your name last; he said you could see the man he tried to be, even in the man he was."

"Yes! yes, a thousand times more than he ever hoped. What was the poor crumbling shell compared to the splendid soul that he builded through those horrible years? Years when he could not quite free himself from the craven thing that was his curse—the fear! fear! fear!"

The two were silent for a moment while the red glow showed them haggard and worn. Then it was the woman who spoke.

"Ralph—do you think a woman can love—really love—two men?"

He stared at her.

"Perhaps," he faltered; "perhaps, but in different ways."

"I loved them both. When—when I find John—if he wants me—if he asks me—I shall marry him." She shuddered.

"Ruth!"

"Yes; I think Philip would give him even—me. His renunciation was wide and deep. He, the great, strong soul of him, went on—alone. It had no real part with his weakness and all that was bound up in his weakness—he wanted John to have everything of which he had deprived him. You can understand, can you not? At the last, when fear had no further power, he was almost mad in his abandon of recompense.

"He did not tell me this, that awful night when he told me—the rest; but I felt it. I saw that I, with all else that had meant anything to him, was included in his shame; and the new nature that had evolved from the agony and remorse—had nothing to do with us any more!"

A deep sob shook the slim form. For a moment Ruth Dale rocked to and fro in her misery, then she let the wild confession again have its way.

"For myself—" the haunted eyes fixed themselves upon Drew's rigid face—"for myself—in a strange fashion—and oh! you shall not misunderstand me, I want to give to him that which I withheld from him when he needed it most. I want to bring back the gladness of life to him—if I can," she gasped; "it has all been such a hideous nightmare. If he wants me—if he wants me, he shall have me!" The words were flung out defiantly, fiercely.

Drew started to his feet, and went quickly to her. In all his life he had never seen on a woman's face such desperation and remorse.

As his friend's wife he had loved her as a sister. Her beauty had always fascinated and charmed him. To see her now, cast adrift on this troubled sea of love and fear, was a bitter, almost a terrifying sight.

He bent over her, and raised her face firmly and gently with one trembling hand. He felt that he must calm and steady her by physical control.

"Ruth," he said gently, but distinctly, "why do you look as you do? Tell me, what is in your heart?"

The woman tried to shrink from the hold he had upon her. He saw that the vital point of her confession she would keep from him unless he commanded, and, if the future were to be saved from the grip of the miserable past, he and she must thoroughly understand each other.

"Ruth, you must tell me everything."

She panted, but no longer struggled mentally or bodily.

"Because," she said, "even now, I could accept the man who was the true sinner easier than the man who was sinned against! Not because of a greater love; but because of the slime of the punishment that the one was doomed to suffer.

"That's what life has done for him—and me!" Again she shuddered. "Don't you see, even when my heart is breaking with love for him—and the old love is growing stronger as—as Philip seems to be going further from me—I shall always think of the hideous—detail that—he suffered. It was what Philip could not face—it is what I—must!"

The words came pantingly, grudgingly and full of soul-terror.

Drew sought for comfort to give to this poor, distracted woman whose white, still face rested in the hollow of his hand, like a dead thing.

"Ruth, you shall not lash yourself unnecessarily. God knows you have borne the scourge of others bravely enough. It is not the detail alone that rises before you, and keeps you from what you have set up as your duty—it is the weakness of the man. That is the pitiful difference. The sin is the sin—but the man who planned was more the master, than he who became the slave. Do not blame yourself entirely—can you not see, it is the instinctive homage humanity pays to even an evil interpretation of the Creator!"

A blur, for an instant, shimmered over the beautiful, solemn eyes.

"No." The woman would not shield herself in this hour. "No; for you forget Philip's cowardice—and weakness. But he was not—smirched with society's remedy for wrong-doing. No; even if I found John had come out of the—the detail, strong and purified, I know, as God hears me, I should always, when most he needed me, see the prisoner instead of—him. Oh! Oh! Oh!"

She closed her eyes, and the great tears were pressed from under the quivering lids.

Drew for very pity released the suffering face, but his hand rested on the bent shoulder. Then out of the strain of the black hour, he asked a question that seemed to have no part in the present trouble; no meaning.

"Ruth have you ever loved just for yourself—just because you wanted what you loved?"

"Just for myself? Who ever does in this world, I wonder?"

She sighed deeply, and sank back in the chair.

It was over at last. There was nothing now to do but to take up her cross and follow as she could; there was no more to be said.

Drew waited for her a moment, still standing behind the chair. Then he spoke clearly and firmly:

"Ruth, in Phil's going he left our love to us; for we are permitted to remember the splendid man in spite of the weakness which crippled him. We must carry out every wish of his. I think when this is done—his brave soul will be free from every earthly stain. The good he did; the man he was, must claim recognition as well as the sin that stamped him. Both are actual and real.

"We'll find John Dale if he is to be found. We'll give him all that is his own—his own. But I pray God he is still man enough to claim no more.

"And now, go to bed. You may sleep safely, for you have made yourself ready even for—sacrifice."

"No! no! Ralph."

"Yes! yes!"

He opened the door of the study, and with bowed head she passed out. Then Drew turned and mechanically banked the fire, and left the room orderly, as was his habit.

As he followed a few moments later, the little clock struck the half-hour of one. Much had been lost and gained in an hour's time.



CHAPTER XVI

Billy arose the morning after his eventful evening, with a feeling of physical discomfort. He attributed it to his neglected duty, when in reality it was merely a disordered stomach.

The past day or two, ending in a feast of unwonted dainties, had created havoc with Billy's newly acquired, higher nature.

He was sulkily belligerent with Maggie, but Maggie viewed the lapse with considerable relief. Billy of the night before awed her in spite of herself. Billy of the morning after cast no reflections on her own inferiority.

Poor Peggy wondered, in her dull way, if she had been dreaming the astonishing things that had set her heart beating. To reassure herself she took a candle and went out to the wood-shed. No; there, in the dim shadows of the cobwebby place, was the stanza that was proof of her son's genius. Then Peggy reflected with a glad heart that it was the accepted belief of the world that geniuses were always cranky and uncomfortable, and, womanlike, Peggy gave thanks that it was permitted her to have a genius for her own.

Soon after breakfast Billy began his life work with a dull pain in the region of his heart.

He went up to Filmer's shack and found him out; he then hauled and pulled the tagged bundles of pine trees, which Jock had left standing by the door, down to the Station.

"What in the name"—Tom Smith paused to expectorate—"of all," (it is needless to enumerate the name of the gods by which Tom swore) "yer doing with them sapling pines?"

"Mind yer business," Billy returned, panting under the last load. "Put 'em on the train; that's you're lookout; and here's the money to pay for their ticket down State." Billy had found the money in an envelope tied to the trees.

"Well, I'll—be—blowed." Tom spelled out the address and took the money.

"Where does these hail from?" he asked.

"From the bungalow," Billy replied with unlooked-for promptness.

Tom had nothing more to say. The bungalow people had the right of way on the branch road. To and from the Junction the name of Drew was one to conjure with.

"I guess," Tom spat wide and far, "I guess she's aiming to decorate the hull blamed town, back there, with greens. She don't mind slashing, she don't."

"Shut up!" Billy commanded. Tom turned to look at the boy, who in the recent past had been his legitimate property, in common with others, to kick and swear at.

"Well by—" But he neither kicked nor swore at Billy. He relieved himself by expressing his feelings to inanimate objects.

Then Billy went up to the tavern. The dull pain was relaxing. The fine, cold air was clearing his muddled wits, and he felt the milk of human kindness reasserting itself in his new-born nature.

"Mr. Tate," he asked boldly, stepping behind the screen to the men's side. "Any letters here for Joyce?"

Tate, bending over a cask of beer, raised himself, and gave Billy the compliment of a long, hard stare.

"Your voice changing, Billy?" he asked blandly. "Gosh! you've growed up terrible suddint. What you doing home in the middle of the season?"

"Got—sick," Billy muttered quite truthfully. "Any letters for Joyce?"

"I don't keep letters on this side, son."

Tate felt compelled to cater to what he recognized in Billy. "And whoever heard of Joyce having letters? If you mean Gaston's mail she's sent for, then I reply straight and honest, and you can tell her—I know my business!

"When Gaston calls for his mail, he gets it. When he wants Joyce to have it—he's got to send order for same. The Government down to Washington, D.C., knowed who it was selecting when it chose Leon Tate for Postmaster.

"Billy, you've changed more in a few months than any one I ever seed. You—" he hesitated, and grinned foolishly—"you feel—like a drink o' anything?"

The subtle compliment to his manhood thrilled Billy; but oh! if Tate had only known to what that manhood was due.

"No, thank you," Billy replied, pulling his trousers up ecstatically. "I don't want nothing to drink—to-day. But won't you please look and see if there ain't a letter for Joyce—with her name to it?"

Tate walked around the screen, followed by Billy, and began fumbling in the row of slits that answered for letter-boxes.

"Bet she's expecting word from Gaston."

Tate moistened his dirty fingers, and shuffled the envelopes.

"Here's five or six for Gaston hisself—one done up with a broad streak of black round it. It's got a dreadful thick envelope! Well, if I ain't blowed. Here is one for Joyce, and did you ever?" Billy was beside him now. "Done in printing. Well, if that don't beat the Injuns. Mis' Joyce Lauzoon—that's good, Lauzoon! No wonder it didn't strike me first; I guess I read it Jude Lauzoon. Here, you want to tote it up the hill? Shouldn't wonder if it was from Jude. If he's got over his sulks, and finds no one to do for him, it's just like him to wheedle his woman into coming back and—beginning all over."

Billy had grasped the letter with trembling hands. He was breathing short and hard. Jared had evidently written the letter before talking to Jude.

"Do you know who that's from?" Tate eyed the boy suspiciously.

"How should I?" Billy impudently turned away, "I ain't Postmaster, am I?"

Tate glared after the fleeing figure. He did not like the sense of insecurity that pervaded St. Ange. If coming events cast their shadows before, then Tate's future looked as if it might be one encompassed by darkness.

When Billy reached Gaston's shack a silence of desolation pervaded it. Had all reputable St. Ange gone a-visiting?

Jock's absence, and now Joyce's, gave Billy a creepy feeling such as a cat must feel who has been deserted by them he trusted.

But there had been no fire in Filmer's shack; on Gaston's hearth a roaring, recently builded fire gave evidence of late companionship.

"Joyce!" called Billy. There was no reply. Then the boy opened the door leading into the lean-to. He had no reverence for retreats. If any door opened to Billy's hand, Billy's feet carried him further.

A fresh fire also blazed on the hearth of Gaston's sanctuary.

All at once Billy's childhood rose supreme over his recently gained moral viewpoint. Ever since he and the other St. Ange children had spied upon Gaston as a stranger, Gaston's possessions had filled their souls with curious wonder.

Maggie was responsible for the story about a certain chest.

"It's as big"—here Maggie had stretched truth to the snapping point—"as this! And it's all thick with iron strips, and it has a lock as big as my head. Once I saw him open it—I was in the next room—"

"What was in it?" St. Ange youth whispered.

"That's telling," Maggie had sniffed.

But after all the earthly wealth that St. Ange greed then held in the way of strings, old postage stamps, etc., had been laid at her feet, Maggie revealed what she had not seen.

"There's hundreds of dollars of gold. Umph! And candy and—and"—Maggie's imagination in those days had been awakened by Gaston's fairy-lore—"and a box tied up with a blood-stained cord! And a gun, and a knife, with queer spots on it, and things that made me turn sick as I looked!"

As Billy viewed the chest now—somewhat dwindled as to size—the old story moved him.

There was no low curiosity of a thieving kind in his feverish longing to test the truth of that old story of Maggie's. Money had no lure for him, candy he was surfeited with, but he'd chance much to get a glimpse of the box tied with the blood-stained cord, and the knife with the queer spots.

Joyce had apparently gone on an errand. Billy stepped back into the living room, then went to the wood-shed, and all around the house.

Perhaps she had gone to the store by a back path—she had a love for unfrequented places.

Billy returned to the shack, laid the letter on the table of the outer room, and tiptoed back to the lean-to.

The particular kind of thrill he experienced then was delicious. Quite different was it from the one that had driven him almost mad with fear as he listened to Jude and Birkdale a time back. This was a thriller that appealed to the familiar in him,—the impishness that died hard.

He went across to the chest and leaned over it. The fire crackled—and he leaped back! Then, loathing himself for his weakness, he knelt before the treasure trove and tried the key in the lock.

It turned easily, and the lid flew back; for the chest was filled to the brim. Several small articles, like letters, pictures and books, fell onto the floor; but Billy heeded them not. He was after bigger game. He tossed the contents hurriedly out. Maggie had lied foully—not a blood stain anywhere, nor knife, string, nor box! Not even a gun, nor candy nor gold dollars.

Billy's contempt for Maggie at that moment was too deep for expression.

Disappointedly he began to replace the poor trash that Gaston evidently prized—the last thing to put back was a photograph—and from sheer disappointment Billy was about to vent his disgust by tearing this in two, when the face riveted his attention. It was a face that once seen could never be forgotten. Pale and sweet it looked up at him. It was part of the clean, better life that he was trying to lead. It made him, all in the flash of an eye, see what a mean, low scamp he was to—

The outer door of the shack opened and shut! Hurrying feet ran across the floor of the living room, the lean-to door was flung back, and, all palpitating and wide-eyed, Joyce confronted the boy.

"You—Billy!" The glorious light died out of the big eyes, the pale, expectant face set into lines of hopeless disappointment. "I thought—" the mouth quivered pitifully, and Billy felt the added sting of discovered shame.

In a moment things steadied themselves, Joyce was mistress of the situation.

"What have you there?" she asked sharply. In the distraction she had not noticed that the chest was open.

"Her picture!"

"Her! Who?" Joyce came over to Billy, and looked at the face he held at arm's length.

Something numbed every sense but sight. That sense must convey the image of the girl-face to Joyce's brain, and implant it there so effectually that it could never be forgotten. And that very morning Joyce had seen its counterpart on the highway!

"Who—is—that?" she demanded.

"It's her up to the bungalow. They call her—Ruth. See! here it is writ on the back—'Ruth'; her other name is Mis' Dale."

The face was burned in now for all time; and the other faculties began to throb into life.

"Billy, where did you get that?"

Then both boy and woman looked at the desecrated chest—and all was told.

Even while she was wildly pushing facts from her, Joyce saw, rising before her, a completed structure of John Gaston's past.

That exquisite girl was she who had held his love before—and she had married the brother! Then Gaston's name was Dale. Oh! how vividly, hideously clear it was. It seemed as if she had always known it. Even the pictured face was as familiar now as Gaston's own. But Joyce's cold lips were forming the words:

"Billy you lie! You brought that over to show me. Tell me the truth." She had him by the shoulder, and her fierce eyes frightened him.

"I have told you the truth; so help me! There she is now; look!"

Joyce turned as Billy pointed to the window.

Outside, near the grave of her baby, stood Constance Drew and the girl whose picture Billy held limply in his hand.

Constance Drew was talking, but the stranger's sweet face was turned toward the house, and Joyce saw that her eyes were full of tears.

"Billy"; Joyce clutched the thin shoulder; "put that back! Now lock the chest, and listen. If you ever tell a living soul what you have done—Mr. Gaston will—kill you!"

Billy obeyed with dumb fear.

"Now, go out of the shed door. Go—don't let them see you!"

Billy was gone, forgetting even to mention the letter lying on the living-room table.

Then Joyce waited. Out in front, they two—Miss Drew and that girl—seemed rooted to the spot near the baby's grave.

Feeling had departed from Joyce—she simply waited.

Finally they, outside, turned. They walked directly to the house, and knocked. They knocked again.

"It's etiquette to go in, if the house is empty." It was Constance Drew's voice. "St. Ange and New York have different ideas. Leave things as you find them, that's the only social commandment here." A hand was on the latch.

"Connie, I cannot! It does not seem decent." That voice sank deep into the listening heart behind the barrier.

"Well, then, I'll write her a letter. I'm sorry I asked Jock Filmer to take a verbal invitation. She might think—"

"That's better, Connie, and while you and Ralph drive over to Hillcrest this afternoon, I'll bring it here; perhaps she will be at home then."

Joyce heard them turn. She watched them until the pine trees hid them; then her heart beat feebly.

Presently she went to the table, and there her eyes fell on the letter Billy had brought. Quietly she took it up, opened it, and read it once, twice, then the third time.

Finally it dropped to her feet, and, with hands groping before her, Joyce staggered to Gaston's deep chair and fell heavily into it.



CHAPTER XVII

Joyce did not faint, nor did she lose consciousness. A dull quiet possessed her, and, had she tried to explain her state of mind, she would have said she was thinking things out.

In reality Destiny, or whatever we choose to call that power which controls things that must be, had the woman completely in its grip. Whatever she was to do would be done without any actual forethought or preparation; she would realize that afterward as we all do when we have passed through a crisis and have done better, perhaps, than our poor, unassisted thought might have accomplished for us.

Joyce was on the wheel, and the wheel was going at a tremendous speed. There was no time for plotting or planning, with all the strength that was in her, the girl was clinging, clinging to some unseen, central truth, while she was being whirled through a still place crowded with more or less distinguishable facts that she dared not close her eyes to.

One cruel thing made her cringe in the deep chair. She was losing her clear, sweet vision of that blessed night when Gaston and she had stood transfigured! If only she could have held to that, all would have been so simple—but with that fading glory gone she would be alone in a barren, cheerless place to act not merely for herself, but for Gaston also.

She was no longer the beautiful woman in the golden dress; nor he the man of the illumined face and pleading arms. No; she was old Jared's wild little daughter; Jude Lauzoon's brutalized and dishonoured wife. Nothing, nothing could do away with those awful facts.

He, the man she loved—who thought in one wild hour that he loved her—was not of her world nor of her kind. He had given, given, given to her of his best and purest. God! how he had given. He had cast a glamour over her crudeness by his power and goodness, but underneath was—Jared's daughter and Jude's wife.

If he took her courageously back to his world they, those others like, yet unlike him, would see easily through the disguise, and would be quick enough to make both him and her feel it.

Without her, they would accept him. The past would be as if it had not been; but if he brought her to them from his past, it would be like an insult to them—an insult they would never forgive. And then—he would have no life; no place. He would have to go on being kind and good to her in a greater loneliness and desolation than St. Ange had ever known.

She could not escape the responsibility of her part in his life. She might keep on taking, taking, taking. On the other hand his old life had come back to him, not even waiting for his choice.

The woman who had misunderstood, had failed him in that hour of his need, had been sent by an all-powerful Force into the heart of the Northern Solitude to reclaim him, now that he had accomplished that which he had set himself to do.

Every barrier was removed. Even Death had been kind to that sweet, pale girl—she was ready to perform the glorious act of returning Gaston's own to him, if only she, Joyce, would let go her selfish, ignoble hold.

Now, if she were as noble as Gaston had striven to make her, there was but one thing to do. Go to that woman up at the bungalow, tell her all that she did not know. All about the heavy penalty weakness had paid for the crime committed by another. Tell of the splendid expiation and the hard-won victory, and then—let go her hold and, in Love's supreme renunciation, prove her worthiness to what God withheld.

The little living room of Gaston's shack was the battle-ground of Joyce's soul-conflict that winter day.

Pale and rigid, she crouched in the deep chair, her head buried on the arm where so often his dear hand had lain.

No; she could not! She would not! Then after a moment—"I must! or in all the future I shall hate myself." Then she grew calmer, and instinctively she began to plan about—going. She would leave both fires ready to light—he might come now at any time.

The letter Billy had brought had not for a moment deceived her. She counted it now as but one of the links in the chain that was dragging her away from Gaston.

It was either Jude or her father who had sent the note. Well, it did not matter, it was the best possible escape that could have been conceived.

Then her plans ran on. She would pack her own pretty things—out of sight! They must not confuse, or call for pity. There would be no note. She, that woman at the bungalow would explain, and would tell him that there could be no reconsideration, for she, Joyce, had gone to her—husband!

At that point Joyce sprang up, and her eyes blazed feverishly.

No; she was going to do no such thing. She was going to wait just where she was with folded hands and eager love. When Gaston came he should decide things. She would not interfere with her future. She would hide nothing; neither would she disclose anything. Why should she strangle her own life, with the knowledge she had neither sought nor desired?

The brilliant afternoon sun crept toward the west, and it shone into the side window and through the screen of splendid fuchsias which clambered from sill to top of casement.

Gaston might come—now! Perhaps he had failed to locate Jude, and would return to consider. Well, then, she could put him on Jude's trail. Gaston, not she, should meet the "woodsman" in Lola Laval's deserted house.

In the sudden up-springing of this hope, Joyce quite forgot the face of the woman at the bungalow.

A freakish yearning to reproduce the one crowning moment of her life possessed the girl.

She would build a great fire upon the hearth, and make the room beautiful. She would don—the yellow gown, and, if he came, he should find her as he had left her.

If he still loved her—and she saw it in his eyes—then nothing, nothing should part them.

She would go with him to Lola's house and together they would finish the dreary search. She would beg him never to return to St. Ange. What did the world matter, the people of the world? Nothing mattered but him and her.

So Joyce flew to the bidding of her mad fancy. She drew the shades and flung on log after log. She swept and dusted the room. Put Gaston's slippers and house-coat close to the warmth. She lighted the lamp to keep up the delusion, then stole to her room and made ready.

Again, as the garments of the daily task fell from her, Joyce felt the sordidness and fearsomeness depart.

The lovely hair lent itself to the pretty design, and the golden gown transfigured the wearer.

She felt sure Gaston was coming. The premonition grew and grew. He would never leave her to bear the Christmas alone. He might return later to search for Jude but, remembering her in the shack, he would come to her for that one, holy day.

He would surprise her. And she?—why, she would surprise him.

How he would laugh and take her in his arms!—for it was all clear ahead of them now. She would lead him to Jude!

A knock at the outer door startled her. She was about to leave her bedchamber complete and beautiful—but the summons stayed the little satin-shod feet, and the colour left the quivering face.

Perhaps Gaston had knocked to keep up the conceit of his home-coming surprise!

Tiptoeing across the living room, Joyce took her stand by the table and called timidly, expectantly and awesomely:

"Come."

The latch lifted and some one pressed against the door, and then, in walked Ruth Dale.

She wore the heavy crimson cloak of Constance's, the fur-trimmed hood of which encircled her face.

Coming from the outer sunlight into the lamp-lighted room, Ruth Dale stood for a moment, dazzled and confused. Then her grave, kindly eyes were riveted upon the splendid, straight young form confronting her.

Never in her life had Ruth Dale been so utterly confounded and taken aback. For a full moment the two faced each other in solemn silence. It was Joyce who spoke.

"I heard you say you were coming. I was in when you and Miss Drew called before, but I wasn't ready for company then. Won't you sit down?"

Mrs. Dale sank into the nearest chair from sheer helplessness.

"Please take off your cloak. The room is very warm."

It was stifling, and Ruth Dale unfastened and let fall the heavy fur-lined wrap.

Joyce took Gaston's chair. The contact seemed to strengthen her.

"Miss Drew—has—sent—this note." Ruth held it out helplessly.

"Thank you. I know what is in it; but I cannot come. I am going away." The proffered note fluttered to the floor.

"Going away?"

"Yes." The word was almost agonizing in its intensity. "Yes!"

"Please—Mrs. Lauzoon," Ruth Dale stammered the name; "please may I hear where you are going? My friends are so interested in you. I—I—am sorry for you. We could not bear to have you lonely and sad here—on Christmas—but if you are going away to be—happy, we will all be so glad."

"Please tell Mr. Drew," Joyce clutched the arms of the chair, and Ruth Dale continued to stare helplessly at the exquisite beauty of this mountain girl, "tell Mr. Drew—I am—going—to my husband."

"Your husband!"

"Yes; he will be so glad, Mr. Drew will. He has always been so—good. Tell him, please—and I think he will understand—that he made it possible for me—to do this—thing."

The human agony contained in these words carried all before it. Ruth Dale got up from her chair, and almost ran across the room to Joyce's side. She leaned over her and a wave of pity seemed to bear the two women along to a point where words—words from the heart—were possible.

"I—I have heard your story, dear. Ralph Drew is such a kind gentleman, and he—we, all of us—pity you from the bottom of our hearts. Believe me, you are doing the right thing, hard and cruel as it may seem now. When God sets you free—then alone can you really be free. I think every good woman knows this. Man can only give freedom within limitations. I know I am right. Have you heard from—your husband?"

"Yes. He has sent for me."

"Have you any message to leave? I will tell Mr. Drew anything you care to entrust to me—he will deliver the message to—any one."

"Please—sit down." Joyce motioned stiffly to a chair across the table. "I have a great deal to say to you."

Ruth obeyed with a dull foreboding in her heart. She felt constrained and awkward. The unusual and expensive gown Joyce wore acted as an irritant upon her, now that she considered it. It seemed so vulgar, so theatrical for the girl to deck herself in this fashion; and the very gown itself spoke volumes against any such lofty ideals as Ralph Drew had depicted in the woman. Evidently Joyce was expecting Gaston back; the statement as to her going to her husband was either false, or a subterfuge.

With Ruth Dale's discomfort, too, was mingled a fear that Gaston might return and find her there. From Drew's description of Gaston she knew he was a person above the ordinary St. Ange type, and might naturally, and rightly, resent her visit. But Joyce, more mistress of the situation than the other knew, was feeling her way through the densest thicket of trouble that had ever surrounded her. Here was her chance, in woman-fashion, to test that strange double code of honour about which Gaston had spoken, and Drew had hinted. Here, woman to woman, she could question and probe, and so have clearer vision.

This woman visitor was from his world. She was kind and was, perhaps, the best that existed down beyond the Southern Solitude. If she bore the test, then Joyce would relinquish her rights absolutely—but only after that woman knew why she did so.

"I—I suppose you think I have been a very bad woman?" Joyce turned sad, yet childlike eyes upon her companion.

"I think you have acted unwisely." Ruth Dale crimsoned under the steady glance. "You see, Mr. Drew has always had a deep interest in you. His sister and I heard about you long before we came up here. He says you had grave provocation. What you have done was done—in ignorance. It would only be sin—after you knew the difference."

"I see. But what—what would you think about Mr. Gaston?"

The colour died from Ruth's face, only to return more vivid.

"I think he has treated you—shamefully. He knew how such things are viewed. He took advantage of your weakness and innocence. I hate to say this to you—but I have no two opinions about such things. I think this Mr. Gaston must be a very wicked man."

A sudden resolve had sprung up in Ruth's mind. If she could rescue this poor, ignorant girl from the toils of the man who had misled her, she would befriend her. She might even save her from the depraved husband who was now her only apparent safety. The girl was lovely beyond expression. It would be a splendid thing to do.

With this in sight, her interference took on an appearance of dignified philanthropy.

"Will you let me help you?" she asked wistfully; "be your friend? I have money; I would love to do what I can. I have deep sympathy with you and—I am very lonely and sad myself. I have recently lost my husband—I have no one."

Joyce continued to hold her visitor with that solemn, intense glance.

"You loved your—husband—very much?" Ruth winced. She could hardly resent the curiosity, but she stiffened.

"Of course. But if I had not, I should have been—lonely and sad. It is a relationship that cannot be dissolved either by death or in any way without causing pain and a deep sense of loss."

"Oh, yes, it can." Joyce spoke rapidly. "The loss may mean—life to you. It may take fear away and a hideous loathing. It may let you be yourself, the self that can breathe and learn to love goodness."

This outburst surprised and confused Ruth Dale. The expression of face, voice and language swept away the sense of unreality and detachment. Here was a vital trouble. A tangible human call. It might be that she, instead of Ralph Drew or Constance, or any other person, might touch and rescue this girl who was finding herself among the ruins of her life.

Ruth Dale was no common egotist, but her charm and magnetism had often taken her close to others' needs, and she was eager, always, to answer any demand made upon her.

"Joyce," she said softly, "please let me call you that. You see, by that name I have always heard you called, and Constance Drew and I felt we knew you before we saw you. I believe you have suffered horribly. All women suffer in an unhappy marriage—but you suffered doubly because you have always been capable of better things, perhaps, than you have ever had. You do not mind my speaking very plainly?"

"No. I want you to."

"But you cannot find happiness—I know I am right about this—by taking from life what does not really belong to you. Do you see what I mean?"

"No, but go on; I may see soon." The quiet face opposite made Ruth Dale more and more uncomfortable. She had, for a moment, forgotten the possibility of Gaston's return; the yellow gown was losing its irritating power; she truly had a great and consuming desire to be of service to this woman who was following her words with feverish intensity, but she was ill at ease as she proceeded.

"If we have bungled our lives, made grave mistakes, it's better to abide by them courageously than defy—well, the accepted laws.

"Perhaps you ought not go back to your husband; I would not dare decide that; Ralph Drew would know, but this I know, you should not stay here. I will befriend you, Joyce, in whatever other course you choose. Please let me help you; it would help me."

She stretched her pretty, pleading hands across the table, and her eyes were full of tears. She felt old, and worldly-wise beside this mountain girl, and she was adrift on the alluring sea of personal service.

Joyce took no heed of the waiting hands, the inspired face held her.

"Don't you see, Joyce, even if this is love that controls you, you would not want it to be selfish?"

"No. Oh! No."

"What do you know of this man Gaston, really? Mr. Drew says he is quite different from the people hereabout. You do not even know the true man, his name, nor antecedents. The time may come when he will return to his former life, whatever it was; can you not see how you would—interfere with such a plan? If he left you—what would he leave you to? And if he were one of a thousand and took you with him—what then? In either case it would mean your unhappiness and his—shame."

Joyce winced, and Ruth Dale saw the hands clutch the arms of the chair. She felt that she was making an impression, and her ardour grew.

"I do not know Gaston," she went on, "but I do know the world; and for women placed as you are, Joyce, there is no alternative. Your very love should urge you to accept the situation, hard as it may seem."

"It does." For a moment the lovely head drooped and the white lids quivered over the pain-filled eyes.

"No matter how—good a man—this Mr. Gaston has been to you—he knew the price you would have to pay some day. He has been either wilfully weak—or worse. A man takes a mean advantage of a woman in all such matters. It is not a question of right or wrong altogether—it isn't fair.

"I have burned over such things ever since I was a girl—I am ready now to prove to you my desire to help you. Will you let me, Joyce?"

"You are very, very good. I can see you are better and kinder than any other woman I ever knew. I believe all that you say is true. If I did not think that, I could not do what I am going to do."

Joyce spoke very quietly, very simply. She was not even confused when she poured out the deepest secrets of her heart. She was worn and spent; loneliness, conflict and soul-torture had torn down all her defenses.

"You are right in all that you have said—but you don't know all!" The flame rose in the pallid face; "but if you did, the truth of what you have said would be all the deeper.

"My love has been a selfish one because I never thought it lay in my power to do anything for—him. I see there is something now that I can do—and I mean to do it so thoroughly that even his goodness cannot prevent. He is so very, very good; oh! if you could only know him as I know him!

"I am—going to my husband, then—that will finish it! But I must tell you something—first."

Joyce caught her breath, and she sat up straight and rigid.

"I suppose in your life you could not believe that a man like Mr. Gaston could be just good to me—and nothing else?"

Woman looked at woman. The world's woman noted the beauty and tender grace of the unworldly woman, and her eyes fell.

"It would be difficult to believe that. I have heard of such cases—I never knew one—and for that very reason of unbelief, it does not greatly matter—the outcome would be the same—for the woman and the man."

"Yes; but they would know, and God would know; might that not be enough?"

"No. Believe me—it would not be enough."

"Do you believe me when I tell you that, in this case, it is true?"

Again the two held each other in a long challenge. Then:

"Joyce, as God hears me, I do believe you. Now I am more eager than ever to be your friend."

"You—cannot be mine—but you must be his!"

"His?" Ruth started back.

"Yes. I do know—something of his life. He belonged—to your world. He had a great, a terrible trouble—but through it all he saw the stars, not the mud, and he came out of it—a strong, tender, brave man."

A dull sob shook the low, sweet voice.

"All the shameful sorrow served as a purpose to make him noble—and splendid; but his soul was sad and hurt. He never blamed any one, though there were others who should have suffered more than he. He just gave himself up to the chance of gaining good out of all the evil. Then he came here—to rest. But he could not help being kind and helpful. He found—me. He taught me, he gave me hope and showed me—how to live. Oh! you can never understand. You have always had life—I never had it until he took the blindness from me.

"He tried to do the best for me—he wanted me to marry Jude Lauzoon. He tried to make Jude good, too—but that was more than even he could accomplish. Then I'm—afraid I cannot tell you—this it might—soil your soul."

"Go on." Ruth spoke hoarsely. She was spellbound and a deathly coldness crept over her.

"Well, Jude dragged all of me down, down, down—all of me but the part that—Mr. Gaston had made. That part clung to him as if he were its God."

"I see, I see. Go on!"

"It was all low—and evil, that life with Jude, except the poor baby. That had a soul, too, but the dreadful body could not hold it. It had to go—and oh! I am so glad.

"Then, in all the world, there was nowhere for me to go but—here. I did not mean to fling myself upon him. I came to save him. There was money Jude had—oh! it doesn't matter, but anyway, things happened, and I was left—on Mr. Gaston's mercy.

"I had only one idea of men—then. You see Jude had almost made a beast of me, too." The great eyes shone until they burned into Ruth Dale's brain.

"But Mr. Gaston rose high and far above my low fear and thought. How I hated myself then for daring to judge him by—Jude. No, he made a clean, holy place for me to live in. He saw no other way to help me—perhaps he did not look far enough in the future, it did not matter—but he never came down from his high place except to make me better by his heavenly goodness.

"After a while it grew easy—after I comprehended his thought for me—and we were very happy—just as we might have been had we been brother and sister. I grew to think his own kind would know and understand how impossible it would be for him to be other than what he was; and for what the lower people thought I had no care. I was—just happy!

"But something happened. Perhaps being near such goodness made me a little better; and a great happiness and lack of fear helped—I think I got nearer to his high place. He loved to give me pretty things. He gave me this"—the fumbling fingers touched the yellow gown; "and I suppose I looked—different, and then he saw that I had—changed and—and he—loved me! I know he loved me; women can tell. I could not be wrong about that. You see I had always loved him—and had once hungered so for his love that when it came I could not be deceived. It—was—that—last—night he told me—about—the past! Then he went away to find Jude—to get Jude to set me free—and we were—going to—be—" the words trailed into a faint moan. "But I see, I see! Even if it had come out right—I'd always be, for all his goodness, old Jared Birkdale's daughter, and Jude Lauzoon's wife. That, he would have to bear and suffer for me—and his world would never forgive him—nor me!

"No; I do love him too well for that. I give him back to his place, and you."

"To me?" And Ruth Dale, haggard and trembling, came slowly around the table, clinging to it for support. When she reached Joyce, she put out cold, groping hands and clutched her by the shoulders.

"You—give him back to me—why? Who is he?"

"John Gaston is—John Dale. It has all come to me so suddenly, I cannot explain, but there is no mistake. I am going to Jude Lauzoon, so that neither you nor he can keep me—from what alone is mine; but be—good to him—or God will never forgive you! Please go now. I must hurry. Good-bye."

"Joyce!" Ruth Dale was crouching at her feet.

"I am—so tired." A long sigh broke from Joyce's lips. "Please do not make it harder. It must be; and I have much to do."

"But—there may be some mistake." A horrible fear shook Ruth Dale. Joyce rose and confronted the woman who knelt on the floor.

"Do you believe there is?" she flung the question madly. "Do you?" There was no faltering, only a stern command.

"No," shuddered Ruth Dale.

"Then please, go. My part is all—over! But—be—oh! be heavenly good to him."

Blinded and staggering under the blow, Ruth Dale got to her feet and went from the house. The outer cold steadied her somewhat, but when, a half-hour later, she entered Ralph Drew's study, the man by the fire gazed upon her as if she were a stranger.

"What has happened?" he asked affrightedly, springing to her side.

She let him take her icy hands in his. "I've found—John!" she gasped hoarsely.

"John—who? Sit down, Ruth. You have had a terrible fright." He put her firmly, but gently in his own arm-chair. "Tell me all about it," he urged quietly.

"John Dale. Philip's brother."

"In heaven's name, where!"

"Up at Gaston's shack. Gaston—is—John Dale."

Ralph drew back and repeated dully:

"Gaston—is John Dale? Gaston—is John Dale?" Presently the wonder became affirmation. "Yes," he almost groaned, "Gaston is—John Dale."

A lurking familiarity of feature gained power in Drew's memory of Gaston. It linked itself into other details. He had always known Gaston had a hidden cause for being in St. Ange. Yes; he was John Dale.

For Drew to become convinced was for him to act upon the impulse of his warm heart.

"Ruth, dear," he whispered, "make yourself comfortable. I will go to him."

Then Ruth raised her hands to hold him back. Her voice was deep and awed.

"No!" she commanded "neither you nor I, Ralph, is fit to enter—there. A miracle has been performed up among the pines. A man and woman have been created—that we are not worthy to—touch!"

"Ruth what madness is this? What has occurred? You must explain to me clearly."

Then the story rushed out in a flood. Tears checked it at times; a hysterical laugh now and again threatened; but Drew controlled the excitement by word and touch.

"And now," Ruth was panting and exhausted; "she, that—wonderful woman, has given him back—to me. Can't you see? She loves the soul of him—the great, strong man of him—but I—why even now, I cannot forget the evil thing—that befell—the body of him while he was—in—"

"Ruth! You shall not so degrade yourself."

"Yes! Yes! it is quite true. That is what I meant. I am not fit to touch—her nor him, and yet I shall shudder all my life—when I remember."

Drew saw that reason was tottering in Ruth.

"He may—not—wish—to claim you, dear," he comforted.

"But he must; he must! Now that she is going to her own; there is nothing left for me to do—but to go to mine."

"This can go no further, Ruth." Drew rose hastily. "I am going to send Aunt Sally to you, and I must think things out. Calm yourself, dear. In all such times as these, a greater power than is in us, controls and gives strength. Let go—Ruth! Let the Power that is, take you in its keeping."

He touched her cold face with reassuring sympathy, and then went to find Miss Sally.

His next impulse was to rush to Gaston's shack; his second thought restrained him. If Gaston had returned, he would rightfully resent any outside interference with this crucial time of his life. If Joyce were decided in the course she had laid out for herself—how dared he, how could he, divert her from it without involving them all in a deeper perplexity?

So Drew resigned himself to the Power that is.



CHAPTER XVIII

It was Billy Falstar who broke upon Joyce's solitude after Ruth Dale had left her.

Worn beyond the point where conscious suffering held strong part, Joyce was completing her final arrangements mechanically and laboriously when Billy presented himself.

"Say, Joyce," the boy faltered, standing in the doorway and kicking his heels together, "I'm blamed sorry I done that sneak job."

"It doesn't matter much, Billy. But now that you are here, will you help me pack food and things? I'm going—away."

Then Billy recalled the letter, and fear rose sharply to the fore.

"You ain't going to go—no such thing!" he cried, coming in and slamming the door behind him. "That's a—that's a fake letter."

"Yes, I know. It doesn't make any difference. But tell me, Billy, is it father or Jude down at the Laval place?"

Billy was stricken with surprise.

"How d' yer know?" he gasped.

"Oh! it was all so foolish!" she answered smiling feebly. "If he—if Mr. Gaston had sent it, don't you see that there would have been no need of this mystery? But is it Jude or father, Billy?"

"It's old Birkdale," Billy burst out, and then between fear and relief he related what had happened in the hut in the woods.

"Then it's a longer way I must go." Joyce sighed wearily. "Do you think I could get there—walking, Billy?"

The boy eyed her as if she had gone crazy.

"'Course not. But what you want to go for, anyway?"

Joyce came close to him. He seemed the only human thing left for her to cling to, the only one to call upon in her sore need.

"Billy, I'm going to Jude because—he's mine, and I belong to him—and it never pays in this world to take what doesn't belong to you."

"But—Gaston—you belong to him—and I want—you—to have him!" Billy felt a mad inclination to cry, but struggled against it.

"No, I never belonged to him, Billy. Believe that all your life—it will make a better man of you. He was heavenly good to me because he was sorry for me—and wanted to see me happy. But happiness doesn't come—that way. Sometimes it seems as if it did—sometimes it seems as if God meant it so—perhaps He did—but the people out—in the world—the people that should have known how—the people who had time and money and learning, they've muddled things so—that we can't even see what God meant for right or wrong.

"Why, Billy, they punish the wrong people, and then when they find out—they do not know the way to set it straight; but it doesn't matter, Billy, we have to go on, on, on, the best we can!"

Joyce put her arms around the boy, and bent her head on his thin, shaking shoulder.

She no longer wore the yellow gown. She was plain, commonplace Joyce, familiar to Billy's unregenerated youth.

But Billy did not fail her. Awkwardly, but with wonderful understanding, he put his arms around her, and whispered:

"I just wisht, Joyce, I was God for a minute—and it would all be right or I'd be——"

"Billy!"

"I'd be gol-swizzled," Billy tamely ended.

He could not master details. He only knew something had happened. Joyce was going to leave Gaston and go to Jude, and he, Billy, must make the way easy, and stand by her as a gentleman should. He patted her arm reassuringly as he thought it out.

"It's 'most night," he said; "I'll hitch up old Tate's mare to the sled. He won't know! It's going to be a big night down to the Black Cat. I'll drive you over to Jude—and wait for yer, if yer say so. If yer don't, then I'll cut back—and I don't care after that."

"Billy!"

"When will you be ready?"

Joyce glanced at the clock.

"It's after six now. I'll be ready when you get back, Billy!"

A moment later Billy had set forth in the black coldness.

It was eight o'clock that evening when the revellers at the Black Cat heard a crunching of the snow as a sled rapidly passed the tavern.

Leon Tate was mixing drinks, with a practised and obliging hand, when the unaccustomed sound struck his ear; he paused, but when the unappreciative driver passed, he lost interest.

"Thought some one was coming?" Tom Smith suggested.

"No; going," Murphy, the engineer, slowly answered.

"Where to, do you suppose?" asked Smith. Any new topic of conversation early in the evening was welcome.

"Like as not," Tate came forward with his brew, "like as not it's them folks up to the bungerler. I heard Mr. Drew had a cutter an' horse over from Hillcrest; and going out nights skylarking seems part of his religion."

"Religion!" sniffed Smith; "they're a rum lot, all right!"

"I wish they was!" Tate put in gloomily, but grinned as the others laughed.

"It's a durned shame to take an animile out nights for fun," Murphy interrupted; "I'd hate to run even the injine 'less 'twas important. Gosh! Tate, you must have let your hand slip when you mixed this."

"Christmas comes but once a year." Tate beamed radiantly. It was good to see that his Black Cat still had charms to compete successfully with the bungalow.

"That piece up to the minister's," Smith glowed inwardly and outwardly, "is the nervy one, all right," he remarked.

"Which one?" asked Tate; "the fixture or the transient?"

"The steady. I was setting here musing late this afternoon, when in she come over there," Tom indicated the woman's side of the screen; "and first thing I knowed if she wasn't standing on a cracker-box on her side, and a-looking over the screen."

"Well, I'll be—" Tate stood straighter.

"'Smith,' says the young woman, 'what does Mr. Tate have screens for?' Then, with her blamed, sassy little nose all crinkled up; 'my! how it does smell. I should think if Mr. Tate had anything, he'd have an air-tight and smell-proof partition.'"

A roar greeted this.

"Like as not." Tate was crimson, "the sentiments you're rehashing ain't got constitootion enough, Smith, to stand much more airing. Something's got to be done in this here place to set matters on a proper footing. You let a woman come nosing around where she don't belong, specially one with a loose-jointed tongue, and there's hell to pay. Our women is getting heady. You men will learn too late, maybe, that you'd better put the screw on while there's something to hold to."

"It's sapping the juice, some." Murphy was beginning to relax. "But, Lord! have you seen the duds for the kids, and the costumes for the women? Mis' Falster had me in to show off hers. Every woman's to have a new frock for the jamboree Christmas night; not to mention the trappings for the kids. The old lady up to the bungerler give 'em."

Tate scowled.

Just then the door opened and Jock Filmer entered. He looked spent and haggard; and his handsome, careless face did not wear its usual happy smile.

"Hello!" he said, slamming the door after him, and walking up to the stove. "I thought I saw your Brown Betty kiting over toward the north, Tate. I was afraid something had happened."

"No; Brown Betty's safe in the barn." Tate's gloom passed as he greeted Jock. "The Reverend's got a new horse. What'll you have, Filmer?"

"Plain soda," Jock replied and walked up to the bar.

Tate almost reeled under the blow.

"Plain—thunder!" he gasped, thinking Jock was joking. But Filmer fixed him with a mirthless stare.

"Plain soda, and no monkeying with it."

The air became electrical.

"Been away?" Murphy tried to break the spell.

"Over to Hillcrest—on business." Jock was gulping down the soda. His throat was dry and burning; and the unaccustomed beverage went against all his desire. "I'm off—to-morrow—for a spell. Won't you join me in a drink, boys?"

The invitation was accepted with alacrity, and Smith asked cordially:

"Where are you bound to, Filmer?"

"Got a job?" Tate gave each man his choice of drinks and looked dubiously at the treater.

"What'll you have now, Filmer?" he asked, "maybe plain water?"

Jock's eyes grew glassy.

"No," he muttered; "make it another soda, Tate. Yes; I've got a job. Such a thundering big one that it's going to take about all the nerve I've got lying around loose."

"Bossing—maybe?" Tate cast a keen glance upon Filmer. Jock returned the look. The gleam had departed from his eyes—he was Tate's master now.

"That's about the size of it," he answered. "Bossing, and it's going to be a go, or you'll never see me again. Here's to you!"

Something of the old dash returned as Jock held his soda aloft.

"Anything happened up to Camp 7?" Tate was uneasy.

"Lord! It's further back than 7." Filmer set his glass down. "It's a new cut—started late, but it's worth trying. So long!"

The others stared after him.

When the door had closed upon the tall, swinging figure, the company turned upon themselves.

"Things are going to—" Tate did not designate the locality. After all, it was needless for him to go into particulars.

An hour later Jock, sitting in his own shack before the warm fire, eyed with satisfaction the preparations for his journey. They consisted of certain comforts in the way of sleeping-bag, provisions, gun and a bag of necessary clothing; and a general mass of debris, in the form of smashed bottles and jugs. A vile smell of liquor filled the room, and there were little streams of fluid running down any available slope leading away from the rubbish. Jock, sitting before the fire, his long legs stretched out and his hands clasped behind his head, eyed these rivulets in a dazed, helpless way, while the foul odour made him half mad with longing. His face was terrible to see, and his form was rigid.

A knock on the outer door made no impression upon him, but a second, louder, more insistent one brought a, "Why in thunder don't you come in, and stop your infernal racket?" from his overwrought nerves.

Drew entered. His fur coat had snow flakes on it. A coming storm had sent its messengers.

For a moment Filmer looked at his visitor with unseeing eyes, then his consciousness travelled back from its far place, and a soft welcome spread over the drawn face. So glad was he to see Drew that he forgot to be patronizing. He was weakly overjoyed.

Drew, with a keen, comprehensive glance, took in the scene and something of what it meant. He smiled kindly, and pulled a chair up before the hearth.

"Been away Filmer, or going?" he asked as he sat down and flung off his coat and fur hat.

"Both," Filmer returned, and although his voice was hard and strained, Drew detected a welcome to him in the tone.

"I wanted you up at the bungalow," he said quietly; "the girls cannot get along without you. It's Christmas Eve," he added quietly, "to-morrow's the big day, you know."

"I shan't be here." The words came harshly. "See here, Drew," Jock flung himself about and leaned toward his guest, his long, thin hands clasped closely and outstretched. "I wanted you to-night more than any one, but God, could know. I couldn't come to you—but you've come to me at the right moment."

"I'm glad of that, Filmer."

"I'm not much of a hand for holding back what I want to give out," Jock rushed on, "and I ain't much of an orator. What I'm going to tell you, Drew, has been corked up for over ten years—it's ripe for opening—will you share it?"

"Can you ask that, Filmer?" The two men looked steadily at each other.

"Did you ever hear of Jasper Filmer on the Pacific Coast?" Jock asked suddenly.

"Yes; he died a week ago. The papers were full of it. We noticed the name—" Drew bent forward—"and wondered."

"I'm his son. There ain't much to tell. It's a common enough yarn. The world's full of the like. It's only when you tackle the separate ones that they seem to differ. The old man—made himself. That kind is either hard as nails or soft as mush. My governor had the iron in his. He banked everything on—me—and I wasn't up to the expectation. I was made out of the odds and ends that were left out of his constitution—and we didn't get on. My mother—" Jock pulled himself together; "she was the sort those self-made men generally hanker after, all lady, and pretty and dainty. You know the kind?"

Drew nodded. His face was ashen.

"I wish you could have seen her, Drew, I've seen a good many, but none, no, not one, who ever came up to her for softness, and fetching ways. Lord! how I loved her. The old man might have known that if I could have gone straight I'd have done it for—mother. She never lost faith in me. Every time I went wrong—she just stopped singing for a time." Filmer gulped. "Then when I pulled myself together, after a while she'd begin again, singing as she went about, and smiling and laughing a laugh that keeps ringing, even now.

"At last the governor got tired of the lapses. I don't blame him; just remember that. He thought if I went off and nibbled—what is it—husks? that I'd come around. He didn't understand that it was the motive power that was lacking in me.

"Good God, Drew! I've been hungry and cold and homesick until I've thought death was the next step; but I couldn't stick to anything long enough to make good. Such men as my father never know what hell-suffering men like me go through—before they fall, and fall, and fall!

"I wrote—lies, home. I wanted to keep mother singing and laughing. I was always doing fine, you know. Coming home in a year or so. I was in Chicago, then New York; but I was getting lower all the time. I put up in those haunted houses—the lodging dives, but I kept those letters going to her, always cheerful.

"Then I made another struggle. I cut for the woods. I got to Hillcrest—when word came—that she had—died!" A dumb suffering stopped the words. Drew laid his hot hand over Filmer's, which were clenched, until the finger-tips were white.

"It was the hope—of making myself fit to go home and hear her sing and laugh that had brought me to Hillcrest. Well, I wrote the old man—that I was going further north. You see, he blamed me. Said the longing for me, the disappointment and the rest, had weakened her heart. I couldn't bear the thought of ever going back—then; so I tramped over the hill and—St. Ange adopted me. It's been a tame plot since then, but it's never been as bad as it was before. I dropped into their speech and ways, and things sank to a dead level. I got word from Hillcrest the other day." Filmer looked blankly into the red embers. "The governor has left—it all to me with this saving clause: if I have any honour I am not to take the money until I can use it as my parents would desire. You see, the old man had what I never suspected—a soft place in his heart for me, and a glimmer of hope. It might not have made any difference—but I wish to God I had known it before."

Drew could not stand the misery of the convulsed face. He turned his eyes away.

"Drew!" Filmer had risen suddenly and now confronted his companion with deep, flashing eyes. "Drew, I'm not going to take the fortune unless—I'm fit to handle it. I've been a tramp long enough to know that I can keep on being a tramp, but I'm going to make one more almighty try before I succumb. I may be all wrong, but lately I've thought the—the motive power has—come to me." A strange, uplifting dignity seemed to fall upon Filmer. Drew tried to speak; to say the right thing, but he merely smiled feebly and rose unsteadily to his feet.

"I wouldn't blame you if you—cut me after this, Drew, but it's got to be said. It's—your—sister."

"My—sister? Connie?" Drew was never so surprised and astounded in his life before.

"Connie?" he gasped again. "Connie?"

"If—if—I was what I might be? If I come into my own, Drew, do you think she—could care—for me?"

"How under heaven can I tell?" Drew said slowly; "she has never—how could she? shown—" he paused.

"How indeed, could she?" Filmer laughed a hard, bitter laugh.

"It would be a poor sort of reformation, Jock—" Drew was getting command of himself—"if it were only to get—her! You've got to get yourself, old man, before you'd dare ask any woman to care for you. I often think the best of us ask a good deal—on trust; but at least a man must know himself before he has a right to expect even—faith."

"Oh! I've worked all that out, Drew, I've been to Hillcrest to talk the beginnings over with a little lawyer fellow who's had my confidence all along. I'm going back where I fell, Drew, in the start. I'm going back there where the loss of her—the mother's laugh and song—will grip the hardest and where the antidote will be the easiest to get. I'm going to take only enough of the governor's money to keep me out of the filth of the gutter until I can climb on to the curb or—go to the sewer, see? But always there is going to be your sister above me. Just remember that—and if you can help her to think of me, once in—a while—"

"Filmer, until you climb up, you must not ask me to hold even one thought of my sister's for you; except—" and here Drew looked frankly in the anxious face—"except as the good fellow of—our Solitude."

"Thank you! That's all I meant. And if I pull up—and stay up—she, not I, will know how to use the money. She's got the heart that can reach down to the suffering, and hold little dying kids on her breast. If I go under, Drew, the money is going to her—anyway."

"Filmer!"

"That's all right, Drew. I know what I'm about. She'll brighten up all the dark places—and remember me in that way if in no other."

Long the two men looked at each other; then Drew extended his hand. Jock took it in a firm grip.

"Good night, Filmer, and God be with you!"

"I'm ready to start, I'll tramp back with you as far as the bungalow."

Jock dashed the crumbling, glowing logs with his foot, and left the fire dying, but safe. Then, gathering his travelling things together, he went out with Drew, closing the door behind him.

It was a snowy night now, white and dry. In silence the two trudged on to the bungalow, then Drew said, "and you won't come in, Filmer, just for a word?"

"Thanks; no."

"Where are you going now?"

"To Hillcrest. I start from there to-morrow morning, after another talk with the little fellow I mentioned. I'm going to keep to the woods for a few days—they always brace me—then I'm going to make a break—for the coast."

"You'll—write—to—me—Jock?"

For a moment Filmer hesitated; then he said eagerly:

"Yes; as long as I'm fighting, I'll keep in touch. If I get down—you'll know by my—not writing. And Drew, I want to tell you something. That religion of yours is all right. It was the first kind that ever got into my system and—stayed there. It's got iron, red-hot iron in it, but it's got a homelike kind of friendliness about it that gives you heart to hope in this life, and let the next life take care of itself."

"Thank you, Filmer. That's going to make me—fight."

Another quick, strong handclasp—and then Drew turned toward the glowing windows of his home.

Filmer stood with uncovered head in the driving storm, and looked, with a great, hungry craving, up to the house that held the motive-power of his new life, and then, with a dull pain he grimly set his face toward—the coast.



CHAPTER XIX

Drew waited until after Christmas before he took a decided part in the affairs of Gaston and Joyce. Indeed he purposely avoided any information regarding what was going on at the shack among the pines. He was determined that St. Ange's first, true Christmas should be, as far as he could make it, a perfect one; and it was one never to be forgotten. It set a high standard; one from which the place was never again to fall far below.

The snowstorm raged furiously for hours, and then the weather cleared suddenly and gloriously.

Blue was the sky, and white the world. A stillness held all Nature, and the intense cold was so disguised that even the wisest native was misled.

Early on Christmas morning, right after the jolly family breakfast, Drew called to Constance as she passed his study door:

"Connie, we cannot have Filmer with us, after all. He's gone away."

The girl stopped suddenly. Her arms were full of gifts, and her bright face grew still.

"Where has he gone?" The question was put calmly, but with effort.

"It's quite a yarn, Con; can you come in?"

"I can hear from here, Ralph; go on."

"You know that rich old fellow on the Pacific Coast who has just died, Jasper Filmer, the mining magnate?"

"Yes."

"He's was Jock's—father."

Drew heard a package drop from his sister's arms. She stooped and picked it up. From his chair Drew saw that her face never changed expression.

"So then, Filmer did not take the trouble to change even his name?"

The voice was completely under control now.

"No. I imagine this was no case of the town-crier being sent out. When the prodigal got ready to return, under prescribed conditions—the calf was there."

"I see. And has he—has Jock accepted the—conditions?"

"He's gone to make—a big fight, Con. He will not take the fortune unless he wins. Filmer's got some of the old man in him, I bet."

"Yes. Is—is his mother living? Has he any one to go to—out there?"

"No one, Con. From what he told me, I gathered that it was to be a fight with the odds—against him."

There was a long pause. A package again dropped to the floor. The girl outside stooped to gather it up; dropped two or three more, then straightened herself with an impatient exclamation.

"He'll win out!" The words sounded like a rally call. With that the girl fled down the hall, trilling the merriest sort of a Christmas tune.

At three o'clock St. Ange turned out in force, and set its face toward the bungalow.

Leon Tate had decided that to put a cheerful front to the foe was the wiser thing to do, so he closed the Black Cat and arrayed his oily person in his best raiment, kept heretofore for the Government Inspector and Hillcrest potentates, and drove his wife himself up to Drew's fete.

"Do you know," he said, as they started, "Brown Betty looks as played out as if she had been druv instead of loafing in the stable."

"She do look beat," Isa agreed. "What's that in the bottom of the sled, Tate?" she suddenly asked.

Tate picked it up.

"Now what do you think of that?" he grunted, and held the object out at arm's length.

It was a baby's tiny sock; unworn, unsoiled. The little twisted foot that had found shelter in it for so brief a time had not been a restless foot.

"Give that to me," Isa said hoarsely, and tears stood in her grim eyes.

"What the—what does that—mean?"

"How should I know, Tate? But it set me thinking. Things often let loose ideas, you know. This being Christmas—and the stable and the manger and—and—the baby. It all fits in."