Tate looked at his wife in an almost frightened way.

"You mean"—he tried awkwardly to follow her confused words; "you mean—a baby has been borned in—our manger?"

"Lord! Tate what are you thinking of? St. Ange may be wilder than Bethlehem in some ways, but there ain't never been no baby borned in my manger."

"Then what in thunder do you mean?"

"Nothing, Tate"; and now the tears were actually falling from Isa's eyes.

"I guess"—she strangled over her emotions—"I guess—it's more like—a flight inter Egypt—than—than—a birthday party."

"Get up, Bet!" Tate was routed by the event. Finally he said slowly, "See here, old woman, I'm going to look inter that—baby boot, and don't you forget it. This ain't no time and place maybe, but Tate's going to have his senses onter any job that takes his possessions for granted. Give me—that flannel boot."

"Tate—I can't."

"Can't, hey?"

"Well then"—and the declaration of independence rang out—"I won't!"

"What!" Brown Betty leaped under the lash.

"It don't belong to me."

"Do you know who owns it?"

"I can—guess."

"Guess then, by thunder!"

"It—belonged—to—Joyce's poor little dead young-un."

"How in"—then Tate blanched, for superstition held his dull wits. "How you 'spose it got there?"

"How can I tell, Tate? But I'll ask Joyce, to-morrer."

With that Leon had to be content.

The feast began at five. Long, long did the youth of St. Ange recall it with fulness of heart and stomach. Yearningly did St. Ange womankind hark back to it. It was the first time in their lives that they had not prepared, and were not expected themselves to serve, a meal. They forgot, in the rapture of repose, their new and splendid gowns—the comfort wrapped their every sense.

"I was borned," poor Peggy confided to her neighbour, "to be a constitootional setter, I think; but circumstances prevented. It's curious enough how naterally I take the chance to set and set and enjoy setting."

Mrs. Murphy smoothed her dark-green cashmere with reverent and caressing hand.

"There's more than you, Mis' Falster," she said, "as is borned to what they don't get, sure! Now me, fur instant, I find it easier nor what you might think, to chew without my front teeth."

This made Billy Falstar laugh. It was the first genuine laugh the poor boy had had for many an hour. Constance Drew heard it, and it did her heart good. For Billy, pale, wide-eyed and laughless, was not in the order of things as they should be. She looked at Ruth Dale and whispered, "Billy is reviving with proper nourishment."

Ruth gave her a sympathetic smile. Ruth was, herself, working under pressure, but she was successfully playing her part.

"His face was the only grim one here," she said. "Just look at Maggie, Con!" To view Maggie was to forget any unpleasant thing.

Maggie Falstar was laying up for the future as a camel does for the desert. Food and drink passed from sight under Maggie's manipulation like a slight-of-hand performance, and through the effort, and above it, the girl's expressionless face was bent over her plate.

The Christmas tree, later, was in the hall. The party staggered to it from the dining room with anticipation befogged by a too, too heavy meal. But St. Ange digestions were of sturdy fibre, and fulfilled joy brought about quick relief.

Aunt Sally looked into the grateful eyes upturned toward the glittering tree, and her own kind eyes were like stars.

It was Ruth Dale who had taught the children to sing, "There's a Wonderful Tree," and the Christmas anthem now surprised and charmed the older people.

Above the shrill, exultant voices, Ruth's clear tones rang firm and true. Drew watched her from his place beside the tree, and his heart ached for her. And yet—what strength and power she had. She so slight and girlish. She had lost faith, and had had love wrenched from her. She was bent upon a martyr's course, and yet she sang, with apparent abandon of joy, the old Christmas song.

Constance Drew was an adept at prolonging pleasure and thereby intensifying it. With the tree bowed with fruit, standing glorified before them, the rapt company listened with amaze to Maggie Falstar as she sniffled and hitched through a poem so distorted that the only semi-intelligible words were: "An—snow—they—snelt—at—the manger, lost in—reverent—raw."

This part of the programme affected Leon Tate in a most unlooked-for manner.

"Say, Smith," he remarked to the station-agent, who was gazing at Constance Drew with his lower jaw hanging, "that beats anything I ever heard in the natural artistic line. Blood's bound to colour its victims—do you remember Pete's mother?"

Tom Smith had forgotten the old lady.

"Well, as sure as I'm setting here, old Mis' Falster uster come inter the Black Cat when she'd had more than was good for her out of the tea-pot, and recite yards of poetry standing on a chair and holding to the top of the screen. There hasn't been a hint of such a thing since then till—"

But the moment had come. The moment when the heart leaped to meet its desire. The moment when the desire materialized, and the soul asked no more.

Workworn faces quivered with happiness. Things that vanity had yearned for, but stern necessity had denied, were held now in trembling hands: precious gifts that one could do without, but were all the more sacred for that reason. Jewelry and pretty bits of useless neckwear, and gauzy handkerchiefs.

Useless? No. For they were to win admiration that was all but dead, and give sodden women an incentive to live up to them.

Little hungry-hearted children hugged dolls so beautiful, yet so human, that nothing more could be asked. Boys, awkward and red, shook like leaves as they fumbled with "buzzum pins" and gorgeous ties and fancy vests.

Sleds, skates and books abounded, and St. Ange, on that sacred day, revelled in the superfluous and the long-denied.

Constance Drew came upon Billy later, while games were in wild progress in the hall and study, seated in a dark corner of the dining room weeping as if his heart would break over a be-flowered vest and a rich red tie.

"Billy!"

"Yes'm." Billy was too far gone to make pretence.

"Don't you like—what you have?"

"Gosh! Yes."

"Are you happy, dear?" The gentlest of hands touched the red head.

"Happy?" Billy blubbered; "I'm busting with it."

"Billy!" and now Constance spoke slowly, impressively, "I want to tell you—something. It's something we have all thought out. It is, perhaps, another Christmas gift for you, dear. I—am—going—away!"

"Going away?" Poor Billy accepted this Christmas offering with horrified anguish.

"Going—"

"Wait, Billy, boy. When Christmas is all over and done with, I am—going back to my other—home until next—summer. But Billy—I want a part of St. Ange with me"—her eyes shone—"I have—been—so happy here—so glad—and so different. I want something to make me remember—if I ever could forget. Billy, I want you to come with me. There are schools there, dear. Hard work, and a bigger life—but it will make a man of you, Billy, if the thing is in you, that I believe is in you. It's your chance down there, Billy, your best chance, I think, dear—and I'll be there to help you—and to have you help me. Billy, will you come?"

Then Billy dropped the red tie and the be-flowered vest. Everything seemed to fall from him, but a radiance that grew and grew. He tried to speak, but failed. He put his hands out, but they trembled shamefully. Then all in a heap Billy sank at Constance Drew's feet and hid his throbbing head in the folds of her white silk gown.

The pale moon peeped through the wide window, and cast a strange gleam over the tousled red head snuggled under the little, caressing hand. It transformed a girlish face that was looking far, far beyond St. Ange's calm and peace. The vision the girl saw was battle. Life's battle. Not little Billy's alone, though God knew that was to be no light matter. Not even Filmer's lonely struggle, but her own. Her fight against Convention and Preconceived Ideas. Against all that Always Had Been with What Was Now To Be.

But as the far-seeing eyes gazed into the future, they softened until the tears mingled with Billy's on the already much-stained silken gown.

"Billy-boy, we're crying. I wonder—what for?"

"Because," Billy's mouth was full of that silken gown; "because you and me is so plum chuck-full of happiness we're nigh to busting."

"Oh! Billy, is that really it, really?"

Billy looked up from his shrine.

"Ain't we?" he said solemnly.

"Billy—I—believe—we—are."

Late that night, standing alone by his study window, Drew's tired eyes travelled over his parish. His people had gone. They were his people at last. God-given, as he had been God-sent. He would work with them and for them. He would live day by day, and not look to the eventide. He would—then he looked down the moonlighted road to the stretch on beyond the house, where the snow lay unbroken on the way up to Gaston's shack. A tall, strong figure was striding into the emptiness. A man's form, swinging and full of purpose. It was—John Dale himself going up to meet his fate.

There was no light of welcome in the shack among the pines. All was dark and lifeless. Drew started back. Humanity seemed to urge him to follow that lonely figure and be within call should his help be needed. Second thought killed the desire.

The man plunging ahead in the night was a strong man. A man who through sorrow, sin and shame, had hewed his way to his own place. No one could help him in this hour that awaited him. He must go up to the Mount bearing his own cross—and accept the outcome according as his preparation for the ordeal had fitted him.

It was ten o'clock of the following day, when Drew was roused from his reading beside the study fire by a sharp knock on the door.

He was beginning, lately, to regard this room of his as a kind of Confessional, and every knock interested him.

"Come!" he called.

Gaston strode in. Whatever the night had meant to him, his face bore little trace of anything but stern purpose.

"Good morning, Drew," he said quietly. "Joyce Lauzoon has left my house. Can you tell me anything about her?"

"Very little, Gaston." The onslaught, so direct and unerring, rather took Drew's breath, but he caught himself in time. "Lay off your coat," he said cordially, "and draw up to the fire. The cold seems to be increasing."

Gaston flung hat and coat from him, and pulled a chair nearer the blaze.

"It will continue to grow colder from now on until the break-up. Drew, I cannot waste time, nor have I any inclination to mince matters. I know that you have, in no small measure, influenced Joyce Lauzoon's thought. I know she has spoken of the effect of your words upon her life and, finding her gone upon my return, I naturally come to you thinking that perhaps—and from the highest motives—you may have said something to her that has led her to take this step.

"Whatever has been said, has been said by some one who could affect her as one speaking, if you can understand, from my side of the question. No one else could have any power over her."

"Gaston, I have not seen, nor have I had any communication with Joyce Lauzoon, since you left this last time. While you were away before, she came to me, and I talked with her as I felt should, under the circumstances."

"I know all about that"; a sharp line formed on Gaston's forehead; "it was indirectly on account of that conversation between you that I left so abruptly again. Pardon me, Drew, but don't you think your aunt or your sister—might have followed up your line of argument by—their own?"

Drew flushed scarlet.

"I am quite sure they did not," he said emphatically.

"I've got to find her, Drew"; Gaston breathed hard; "none of you understand the situation in the least."

"Perhaps we do, Gaston." The minister-instinct rose within the weak man, and gave him the sudden dignity that had always impressed Jock Filmer.

For the life of him Gaston could not despise the young fellow. There was courage of purpose and conviction that ennobled his frail body. It was no easy thing, Gaston felt sure, for him to place himself and his youth in this attitude toward a man older than he. It was undeniable Drew lost sight of himself every time he accepted the demands of his profession,—and the renunciation won respect.

"See here Drew, I do not often give my confidence. It does not often appear necessary, and I think nine times out of ten it complicates matters instead of solving mysteries, but I'm going to speak quite openly to you—for Joyce's sake. It would not make any difference to others—they think she deserves punishment for appearing to deserve it, but I believe you will be able to comprehend the difference and perhaps help me to help her.

"Up to the night when she told me that she had seen you, and that your conversation had emphasized some doubts of her own—she had been to me, first a poor hounded creature, then, a striving, high-minded girl endeavouring to free herself from the bondage of evil that had been her inheritance. I'm not going to speak of myself in the matter, only so far as to say that my own life, under different environment, has been such—that I understood; I undertook the—task of helping her! Whatever of temptation cropped up now and then, was strangled for her sake always,—sometimes for my own, too—it died at last, and I was enabled to serve her with single purpose.

"What that task has meant to me—I cannot expect any living soul to understand. I was very lonely. I never looked for reward nor recompense. It was—I thought it was—enough in itself. But something had been going on that was no part of my plan. Like a revelation it came to me, that last evening I spent at home—that she was a splendid woman; and I knew that I loved her!

"That was why I went away. I went to find Jude Lauzoon. I meant to free her, and marry her. Her love has always been mine. This may make no difference—perhaps you cannot believe it—but it's God's truth, and now you see why I must have her."

Drew had never shifted his gaze from the speaker's face. Conflicting emotions tore him—but there was no doubt in his heart, now, of Gaston.

"In your profession, Drew," Gaston saw that he had gained his point, "you do not want to condone sin, but you want to understand the sinner as well as possible; and, Drew, you may take my word for it—I'm not in an overwhelming minority."

For a moment Drew tried to speak and failed. Every expression of his true thought seemed inadequate and futile. Presently he stretched his hand across the little space that divided him from his companion.

"Gaston," he said, "I thank you. It does make a difference. It makes—all the difference in the world."

His thin, blue-veined hand fell upon Gaston's strong, brown one, which lay spread upon the chairarm.

Gaston did not flinch under the touch. He did not seem to notice it.

"Drew," he continued after a long pause, "it will help me—to find her, perhaps, if you tell me the little that you know. I am not going to let her slip if I have to hunt every inch of the woods for her. You must see that there is danger in every moment's delay.

"Can you tell me if any one has seen her and talked with her who might influence her from an—outside point of view?"

Drew was sorely perplexed. He realized that Ruth's wild description of her encounter with Joyce had left many unexplained points. Evidently Joyce herself had, in some way, learned more of Gaston's past than Drew had at first supposed. Then, to tell Gaston, even in his trouble, that a guest of his, Drew's, had gone into the other's home and caused this calamity, was too cold-blooded a thing to do, without due consideration.

He knew, better than his companion did, that if Joyce had carried out her intention, there was no need of haste.

Gaston was looking keenly at him.

"You are keeping something from me, Drew," he said slowly, "and you have a reason for doing so?"

"Yes, Gaston, I am; and I have."

The further he became involved, the more hopeless the position became to Drew. Gaston was seeking to solve Joyce Lauzoon's problem and his own, without the test of Ruth Dale. Not only Ruth's confession as to Joyce, but Ruth herself must enter into Gaston's future plan of action.

"You know, Drew, who went to my house?"

"Yes; I know that Joyce had a visitor who might have influenced her to take this step; but I have reason to believe that Joyce did not act upon this other's initiative entirely. She had certain knowledge of her own that—urged the course she has taken."

"That is impossible!" Gaston's eyes flashed. Recalling that last scene with Joyce, he could not doubt her simple faithfulness—unless that faith of hers had been turned into a channel which she fondly believed was for his greater good. Nothing could change Joyce Lauzoon. Whatever had been the cause, Gaston knew, she had forgotten herself in her decision.

"I am—sure I am right, Gaston."

"And you refuse to tell me who has seen her?" A slow anger was mounting in Gaston.

Before Drew could reply, a merry call from the hall smote both men into dead silence.

"Ruthie! Ruth Dale, where are you? Come, let's go and see how things look the morning after?"

Constance Drew had given Gaston his answer. By the magic of that name she had connected the Past and the Present. The shock was tremendous, but Gaston bore it with only a tightening of the lips to show the agony he was enduring.

Presently an aimless question broke the unendurable stillness of the room.

"Who—is—that, Drew?"

"Ruth Dale—your brother's widow."

"So—he is dead?" At such vital times in life, the mind leaps over chasms of events, and takes much for granted.

"Yes; he died a year ago."

"How long—have you known, Drew—about him and me?"

"Only a few nights ago. He was my friend for a comparatively few years—but he was—a dear friend!" Drew spoke as if defence were necessary.

"I wonder—how much you do know, Drew?" Gaston's face quivered. He began to understand Joyce's soul-struggle.

"Everything, Dale," the name clung uncertainly upon the speaker's lips; "everything—vital. Philip confessed—the week before he died."

Both men lowered their eyes. They dared not face each other for a moment.

The fire crackled and the clock ticked. Every sense was sharpened and quickened in Dale until it was painful.

Objects in the room stood out clearly to his uncaring sight; the snap of the fire, the tick of the clock smote like separate reports upon his hearing; and while he lived he was to recall, when he smelled burning pine, this tense moment. Presently he rose unsteadily and reached out for his coat and hat like a blind man.

"Well, Drew," he said, making an effort to speak evenly, "there doesn't seem to be anything more to say. I am going. Good-bye."

"Dale—where are you going?" Drew was beside him.

"I'm going to try and find—Joyce Lauzoon."

"She—has—gone—to—her husband! He sent for her—and she went." Drew spoke with an effort; but before the look on John Dale's face, he staggered back. Hopeless rage, defeated desire blanched and fired in turn the strong features. Then without a word Dale strode from the room.



CHAPTER XX

John Dale went directly to his shack. What else was there for him to do until he could find another trail through the blank that surrounded him?

When he had entered his home the night before, God knew he had been sorely distressed. He was going back to the woman he loved with her fetters still unloosened. Worn and spent, he had permitted himself the relaxation of spending a few days with her before he started out again on the quest of Jude. He had found the shack deserted, but every pitiful evidence of Joyce's thought for his comfort was apparent. He had lighted the fire and lamp; had searched for note or other explanation, and, finding none, he had eaten hastily and gone to Filmer's house. There desolation again greeted him.

Finally he had concluded that Joyce had gone to Isa Tate. This was a poor solace, but it stayed him through the long night; an early visit to the Black Cat proved this last hope vain.

Now, with the later knowledge searching into his soul, Dale noticed the careful arrangements Joyce had made, before she slipped back into the hell from which he had once rescued her.

She had taken only her own poor belongings. The shabby gowns and trinkets that had been found among the ruins of the home Jude had laid low.

One silent token of the flight brought the stinging tears to Dale's eyes.

At the last, there must have been haste, for near the door of Joyce's bedroom lay the mate of the baby's sock that Isa Tate was hiding at that very moment.

Poor, dead baby! He was pleading for the pretty mother who in his brief life had so tenderly pleaded for him.

Isa had wept over the tiny shoe, and now John Dale picked the mate up reverently, and put it back where he knew Joyce always had kept it.

Manlike he did not give himself blindly up to his misery. Life must go on somehow—and while he sought a way out of the blackness that enshrouded him, he must prepare himself.

He replenished the fire, and then when high noon flooded the living room with a pale glow, he set forth a meagre but nourishing meal.

In the performing of these homely tasks he found a kind of comfort. It brought Joyce back to him in a sense.

During the early afternoon hours he smoked and thought. Things became clearer, more fixed in his mind.

Of course Joyce had been driven to Jude by a mistaken idea that she was proving her deep love. Almost from the first, Dale thought of Ruth Dale detached from the shock of her mere name as it had struck his brain and heart in Drew's study. The old, vital charm of Ruth's personality; her sweet, convincing power, when she chose to exert it, now rose in his memory. Joyce would be but a baby in the hands of such a woman.

A fierce indignation swayed the man. Gone was the sweet memory of the control that that same charm had once had over him. Only as it now had touched Joyce did he consider it, and every fibre of his being rose in resentment.

The savage in him gained strength. He would follow Joyce and have her yet—in spite of all that had passed!

When Joyce saw and knew—what would he and she care for the rest? He could deal with Jude—there was still money.

The wild claimed precedence over the innate refinement in Dale, and he rose to begin his search. He glanced at the clock. It was four. He could get—somewhere before dark.

The prospect of action gave him relief and he was just turning to the inner room, when a timid tap upon the outer door stayed him.

His heart gave a great throb. Had she come? Had she returned to him? Had she found the way back to hell impossible after he—the man she had deserted—had shown her a path to heaven?

"Come!" he commanded as if defying any other hold that might have power over her.

Pale, trembling and enveloped in the fur coat and hood, Ruth Dale entered and closed the door behind her.

Her eyes were wide and fear-filled, but self-possession was not lost.

"John!" she cried pleadingly; "as soon as they told me—I came."

Her outstretched hands recalled Dale to the present.

"Ruth!" he whispered hoarsely, going to her; "this is—kind of you. Let me take your wraps. Here, sit down."

It was a relief to have her a little distance from him. He took a chair on the opposite side of the hearth, and struggled to regain his composure. For the life of him he could not fix his identity in the place where the sudden convulsion of events had cast them all.

He was an exile from the past of which this lovely woman was a part, and the present had no space for her.

In a dazed way he noted how exactly the same Ruth looked. When he had dropped her hands—way back there in time, she appeared precisely the same to him as she did now, with those same little jewelled hands lying white and soft in her lap. She had worn a bright gown then, Dale recalled, but even the gloomy raiment that now enfolded her had no power to change the woman of her.

Poor Dale could not comprehend in his new birth and life, that such women as Ruth Dale are Accomplished Achievements of heredity and ultra refinement. Generations ago Ruth's type had been perfected; she and others of her kind, were but repetitions.

Her girlhood had been a brief pause before she had entered her fore-ordained womanhood—a mere waiting for the inevitable. Thus, Dale had last beheld her—so his photograph of her had fixed her in his mind. He saw her now the same, outwardly, and the placidity of the oft-repeated type held her afar from his rugged place.

Dale himself had been tossed into the fire of temptation, in the rough. He had fallen to the depths but to rise—a better and stronger man with the dross burned out. The strong, primitiveness of him was as alien to anything that was in Ruth as if the two had never seen each other before.

Like a man struggling with the recollections of a pre-incarnation, Dale sought to find a semblance of the old passion and fire this woman had once roused in him. Not even a reflection of them could he summon. Had she entered his life two years before she might still have been able to fan the embers into flame among the ashes; now she was powerless! Love, a great overpowering love, a love having its roots in the life of the woods and primitive things—held the man for its own.

Looking into the deep eyes that once had pleaded with hers, Ruth Dale, sitting in the lonely shack, wondered why she could not cope with this critical situation. It grieved and perplexed her—but it did not daunt her. Sweet and retiring as she was, and consciously self-forgetful as she believed herself, Ruth was what ages had made her. Had her subconscious self asserted itself, it would have boldly proclaimed its absolute superiority over other women of such make as poor Joyce Lauzoon. Not merely in the other's shocking lack of moral sense—but in very essence.

John Dale had suffered—and had tried, in weak man-fashion, to solace himself. The world had helped to train Ruth Dale. While not admitting that there should be any palliation for the double code—or even the appearance of it—such women as she recognized it, and were able, under sufficiently convincing circumstances, to deal with it. There were reasons, heaven knew, why she, Ruth Dale, should be lenient with this silent man across the hearth. The white-souled innocence in her thanked God, in this brief silence, that the man was not as evil as many a man, under the circumstances, might have been. She believed Joyce's statement. It was wonderful, it was most weirdly romantic—and it could be overlooked!

It would have been absolutely impossible for Ruth Dale to conceive that John Dale had so far outgrown her in the great human essentials of life, that he had no further need of her. The life of which she was a part, the life of which she was, she and her detached kind, the shining centre, had not enough vitality to hold this man of nature to it. But the pause was growing painful.

"John—I have come to tell you all."

He overleaped the poor past, and in his hunger to know of her part in the present, said eagerly:

"Ruth, I am waiting to hear. I might have known you would come."

Then, to his surprise, the pretty sleek head was bent upon the arm of the chair, and Ruth Dale wept, as the man opposite had forgotten women could weep. The sobs shook the slender form until pity for her moved him to touch and soothe her; while the savage in him held him back. Somehow, in a rough way, it seemed retribution. He was glad she could suffer. But presently the flood ceased, Ruth looked up, tear-dimmed and quivering. The torrent had borne away much sentiment; she was able to face reality.

She told of Philip's dying confession. She delicately and graphically told of the broken life—after he, John, had passed out of it—and they, who remained, bravely wound the tangled ends into a noble whole.

Dale followed her words as if the story were of another—and of a life he had never shared.

"Philip wanted you to have all—everything—of which his weakness had deprived you!"

Dale started.

"Oh! Yes," he said vaguely; "I see. Well, I can understand that. But Ruth—not even God could accomplish that miracle. In all such cases it has to be what a man himself can get out of the wreck. It has to be other things. New things—or he is—damned."

It was the word more than the thought that caused the shudder in the crouching woman.

"You have never forgiven us," she whispered.

"Yes, I have, Ruth. When I got to a place, cleansed by suffering, where I could forgive myself—everything else was easy."

"Oh! John, why could you not have trusted me with your—your brave secret?"

Why, indeed? John Dale could not have told; he only knew he had never paused to consider when it came to telling Joyce Lauzoon. The thought gripped him hard.

"It had to be, Ruth, I imagine. All the ugly factors had to be taken into consideration when the plan for re-making Phil and me was designed."

A grim smile touched the corners of the stern mouth.

"He left his fortune to you!"

"I cannot take it." Dale raised one hand as if pushing aside an insulting offering.

"John—I have my share—and my father's money. Think! Philip meant that you should prove your forgiveness by—finishing his work. I never saw greater anguish than in his desire. Can you, dare you, refuse?"

A mist rose in Dale's eyes. Ruth saw it, and it gave her courage.

Strangely enough, now that she groped toward this new man she saw before her, her aversion to the man she once knew was lost sight of. A dim fear arose that her sacrifice might escape him and her. Not through any unwillingness on their parts, but through a misunderstanding. She bravely strove to down the menace.

"John—I came to this house a few days ago to help a weak, erring woman, if I could. That is all I knew. Almost at once she made me see the strange thing that had happened here through the goodness of a strong man, and the simplicity of—a weak, but loving woman.

"All unknowingly I yearned to help her—save her, but she wanted to save herself more than I understood at first. She was so brave and direct; once she saw where her weakness had placed her and the man she loved, she was strong in her determination to right the wrong. For her, poor soul, there was but one way—she returned to her husband!

"John—she told me who you were. In some way she knew who I was. I was so distressed and surprised at the time that I did not question how she knew me—but she did and"—Ruth could not bring herself to say, "she gave you back to me."

"John—let the cruel, cruel past be forgotten. Come back to your own. The world will see you righted. John, say that it shall be as I—as Philip—desire."

She looked like a spirit as she bent toward him full of compassion, of entreaty, and the kinship with that which she believed was still in him, and only waiting for her to call to action.

The minutes passed—her call brought forth no rush of checked emotion and controlled passion.

Dale looked at her coldly. He was far too simple a man, intrinsically, to gather the true, inward drift of her thought. He was now seeking to understand the change that had overcome him. She, the girl of his Past who had held his love, hope and desire; she no longer moved him except in wonder and aversion. But he felt that it was due her that he should meet her as far as possible on this new way they were travelling. He shifted his position. He knew something more was expected of him than he could give; but he must give as he could.

"Ruth," he began, and, because his inclination was to move away, he purposely drew nearer; "I am sure you meant nothing but kindness in coming to Joyce Lauzoon; I can see that you mean only great good to me—but you cannot understand. You haven't even touched upon the truth. I suppose some people are born complete in the little; they only have to develop. Others are—well—thrown together, and they cannot assume form and shape until by blows and chiselling they come through the machine—moulded. You have always been good and true; what you knew of me, long ago, died and was thrown aside; what little survived, was nourished apart from, and upon a life you have no conception of. I think only lately have I realized this myself. I'm a bigger and a smaller man than you knew, Ruth; I'm stronger and weaker; better and worse," his hand clenched over the arm of her chair, and her eyes dilated. She was frightened. She felt his blood rising and she shrank back. It was horrible to be there—with him alone!

"You cannot understand, but that old life seems to me now to be—used up, colourless and flabby. The people seem small and—all alike. This life—is big, free and—in the making. There are souls here that are only touched by sins that have drifted to them—they are possible of great things. They are new and keen, and they ring true when you strike them. The woman who left this house—the other day," Dale's words came hard and quick, "is the most glorious creature that ever lived. The life back there could not produce her. Strong, tender, and love itself! Not for one instant did she pause when she knew who and what I was—she loved—that was enough! God! how she loved. You—and women like you, Ruth, might lead the men you love toward heaven; she would go her way alone to perdition to add to the happiness of the man she loved. But it would be alone, mind you.

"She's gone back to such a man as your books, even, forbear to portray. Jude is one of the creatures up here who was born without a soul. She's gone to him to save me, as she thought—but she'll live alone, alone as long as she lives at all.

"So you see what trouble comes from such civilization as yours grafted on to the primitive passions of the backwoods."

"John!"

There was no fear in Ruth Dale now, only a horrible conviction that John Dale, the man she had come to reclaim and give back to his own, would have none of her!

"John! John!" So he had sunk so low.

"Do you know where she is?" Dale looked at his companion without noting her pallid astonishment.

"No; I do not."

"Then—and you will let me see you back to Drew's? I must go and find her. She shall have the truth, the whole truth, by God! to cool the fires of that hell she has been thrust into."

Ruth covered her face with her trembling hands. Never before had she been so near the bare, throbbing heart of things.

Oh! from what had she been saved? And yet—he was standing above her and he was superb in his strength and power. He was holding her cloak for her; helping to rid himself of her. The old half-dead, but vital call of the aboriginal woman rose in her, then ebbed away at birth in a feeble flickering jealousy.

"I do not wish you to go with me." Ruth felt timidly out for her sweet dignity; the perquisite and recompense of exquisite refinement. "I prefer going alone."

"It is quite dark."

"I shall not be afraid," Dale walked with her to the door. Just before the blackness engulfed her, she turned her little, flower-like face to him:

"John—I shall always be ready to be—your—friend if you need me."

"I shall remember. Good night."

An hour later Dale walked into the Black Cat Tavern and made a ruinous bargain with Tate for the use of his horse and sled for an indefinite time. "I'm going up into the woods," he explained, "I may be gone a week, a month, I cannot tell; when I reach Camp 7, I'll send your rig back."

"Going to join Filmer, maybe?" Tate's little eyes rolled in their cushions of fat.

"Perhaps." And Tate took this as affirmation. Now that Joyce had rejoined her rightful lord and master—for the story had leaked out—it was quite natural that Gaston should take to the woods.

"It's one on 'im," Tate confided, as Brown Betty and the sled dashed by.

* * * * *

When Dale started out his purpose was very vague. If he reasoned at all it was to the effect that Jude, after Joyce rejoined him, would seek employment as near at hand as possible. It would be like his weak vanity to parade his victory by going to the men who had known of his defeat. Besides, if he had sent for Joyce, he must have been in the neighbourhood. The heavy storm, in any case, would hinder a long journey, and the men at Camp 7 might perhaps have news of Lauzoon either before or after Joyce had met him a day or so ago.

It had been a short time. He and Brown Betty were a better pair than Jude and a heavy-hearted woman. So Dale drove on toward Camp 7.

He tried to keep to the trail, once he struck the forests, but the snow was unbroken—the heaviest fall had occurred after Billy's return—and Brown Betty intelligently slackened her speed and felt her way gingerly through the darkness. It was still as death. Above the trees the stars pricked the sky, and the intense cold fell like a tangible thing upon the flesh exposed to it. Dale pulled his fur cap lower, and gladly let Betty have her will.

* * * * *

Now when Billy had left Joyce at the end of their flight, it was near the door of the woodman's hut.

"Billy," Joyce had said, lingeringly clinging to him as the last familiar thing in her happy span of life; "Billy, you must turn back, and God bless you, dear. You see Jude must not know anything about you—and it's all right now, Billy."

Billy made an effort to speak, but ended in a sob.

"Never mind, Billy, it's all right now. Just remember that. Kiss me Billy."

And Billy kissed her like the true gentleman he was on the way to being. Then Joyce, with her shabby baggage, and basket of provisions went on alone.

She was stiff and cold, and her heart was like lead within her. With surprise she noticed that the door of the hut was partly open, and the snow had drifted in. It was dark and lifeless apparently, and for a moment Joyce thought that Jude had gone away, and she turned to recall Billy before it was too late. Then she boldly entered the house. The little entry was covered with snow and the room door, too, stood as the outer one did, ajar. Joyce paused and listened—then a horrible fear took possession of her. The still house overpowered her for a moment, but she knew that death awaited her in the outer cold and loneliness, so by superhuman determination she felt her way toward the fireplace—she had been in the hut more than once and memory served her now. She forced herself to think only of lighting the fire. Even when she struck a match she would glance nowhere but at the hearth.

Her teeth were set close, and her breath hardly stirred her bosom. There had been a fire recently—but the ashes were cold. There was, however, wood nearby, and Joyce tore the paper from one of her packages and used it to ignite the smaller wood.

There was a puff, a flare, and the wood caught.

With the growing heat and light a semblance of courage returned, still Joyce kept her eyes rigidly upon her task. She laid on more wood, and yet more. It was past midnight and the terrible stillness Was numbing her reason. Presently she cautiously turned—something compelled her. She did not expect to find—anything, but she had to look! Away from the red glare, the shadows concealed their secrets from the fear-haunted eyes, but only for a moment.

Jude was there! He was lying stretched upon the floor. A bottle was near his outspread hand. He was asleep.

Joyce did not try to get upon her feet, but she crept toward the still form. She touched, with stiff fingers, the hand of the man she had come to meet—the man who was to save her from her love.

"Jude!" she whispered hoarsely; "Jude!"

A falling log started the others to a redder glow. The face of the man upon the floor lay exposed. The eyes were open—but unseeing, and Joyce knew that Jude was frozen to death!

She made no cry. Had she been capable of sensation she would have gone mad, but she was conscious of no emotion whatever.

The room grew hotter and brighter. She drew away from that horrible shape upon the floor. She must forget it or her head would burst. In the morning, and it would soon be morning, she could go for help—but for now she must forget.

Still creeping, she regained the fireplace; there she huddled with her back to—that long black shadow. Yes; it was but a shadow. She would not think of it but as a shadow.

She braced against the chimney corner, and set her face to the warm, soothing light. Once she stirred and threw on more wood, then she returned to her corner; and kept her eyes in one direction.

An hour passed. The slight form by the fire relaxed, and sank gradually to an easy position far enough away from the fire to be safe. The pretty head fell upon a bundle that had earlier been dropped carelessly there—and a great peace rested on the worn face. Suffering, hopelessness and fear fled as the calm gently settled from brow to chin; and all that was conscious of Joyce Lauzoon drifted into the oblivion that has never been fathomed.

Behind the sealed doors—the miracle was performed. The spirit freed from its suffering body—but not claimed by Death—was strengthened and purified. Where it fared—who can tell? How near the Source of eternal things it wandered none may know, but it drank deep and lost its earth-stain long enough to carry back with it a faith that would enable it to live.

The rosy light of day was showing ruddily in the window of the hut when Joyce opened her eyes. The returning spirit came slowly back with stately serenity. There was no shock nor start of wonder; it took possession of the refreshed body that was awaiting it, and accepted its responsibilities.

Joyce was lying on her back, her hands crossed upon her bosom. The fire still glowed at heart, and the room was warm. A calmness and saneness reigned supreme. Joyce wondered what had befallen her? Then slowly, like a wise mother, Nature gave into her conscious thought the knowledge of things as they were.

She turned—yes! there was Jude. But she did not shrink nor shudder now. Young as she was, she had seen death many, many times. She had gone to the portals, alone, with others beside her poor baby. She rose now, and walked over to Jude's side. The night had wrought a change in him, seemingly; or perhaps it was Joyce's regained sanity. The man on the floor looked calm, peaceful and strangely dignified. His helpless peacefulness appealed to Joyce. She began to take away all signs of degradation that remained. The inanimate tokens of poor Jude Lauzoon's weakness and undoing.

The empty bottle was hidden from sight; the disordered clothing was straightened, and the hands that were never to work harm again, were folded over the quiet breast.

God had set Joyce free! and as she did the last, sad service for the man who had no real place in her life, the words of Ruth Dale recurred to her.

No; she had never been free before. She never could have been free while Jude and she walked the same earth. There had been an intangible link that only death could sever.

Her freedom had come too late—but no! Sitting beside Jude's body, Joyce felt the convincing truth that, come what might, she could, she would live as John Dale had shown her how.

Softly, with reverent touch, Joyce covered the grim, white face, and turned away to prepare for her home journey. She must get others to come for Jude's body. Her part was all past now forever. She must go to face her new life, whatever it might be.

As she opened the outer door, the clear, stinging cold brought a sense of freshness and sweetness with it. It was so alive, and it called to all that was awakening in her. Her slow blood tingled and her breath came quick and deep.

For very relief she took off her close hood, and flung her arms wide as if in welcome to what awaited her.

The unbroken snow spread on every side. Like the first-comer in this new, pure world she set forth with a high courage and a strange faith.

So she came upon John Dale's vision, and he started back, fearing that his weariness and heavy heart were playing havoc with his senses. Having seen smoke rising from the chimney of the hut, he had left his horse and sled a short distance away, and had come to investigate.

So absorbed was Joyce that she neither saw nor heard the approach of the man she had put from her life.

Her pale beauty, as she came quickly toward him, struck Dale as almost unearthly. She was within a few yards of him when she saw him. A rich colour flushed her face as she recognized him and her eyes widened.

"Jude—is dead!" she said simply. She thought he was still upon his quest; still ignorant of the happenings that had driven her away from the shack.

The words had the effect of paralyzing Dale. Had this woman taken a life in self-preservation? Then the sweet, innocent calm of her face reassured him. Jude was dead! Every barrier was removed—every obstacle overcome.

Dale rushed toward her with outstretched arms. The look on his face awed Joyce—but before she was swept into a bliss that might not be rightfully hers, she shrank from him. She put her hands out pleadingly as if imploring him to withhold what her soul was hungering for. Dale understood.

"Joyce—I have been home. They have told me—all!"

"All?" Joyce panted the one word. "All?"

"Yes. Everything. Now—will you come?"

To his dying day Dale was never to forget the look she cast upon him as he and she stood alone in the white trackless forest.

Love, such love as worn-out civilization knows not, took possession of Joyce Lauzoon. A love that controlled and uplifted.

Dale waited—then she came to him, glorious and strong in her power of joy-giving. She clasped her hands around his neck, and lifted her face to his; their lips met and their eyes grew wondrously tender.

"And now,"—it was Joyce who recalled him to duty—"where shall we go?"

His promise to Drew followed close on the question; and Ruth Dale's farewell to him as she slipped from his life came with a new meaning.

"Sweet," he whispered, "they are waiting for us—Drew, and my sister, Ruth Dale."

THE END

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Transcriber's Note:

1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.

2. The Table of Contents was not present in the original book.