At Cameron's second attempt to put her on her feet he succeeded, for when he paid his third call, a quaint little note greeted him at the office:

Thank you—thank you for all that you have done. I will explain everything soon, in the meantime, morally and physically, I am wobbling home.

Cameron's jaw set as he read.

"I'll wait," was what he inwardly swore. And at that moment he was conscious that, for the first time in his career, a woman had got into his system!

When Joan reached Stone Hedgeton she feared that she and Cuff would have to overcome many obstacles before they reached The Gap, for no one was willing to travel the roads.

"There is holes in the river road mighty nigh a yard deep," one man confided. "I ain't going to risk my hoss, nor my mule, nuther!"

It was the mail man who, at last, solved the problem. He had a small car whose appearance was disreputable but whose record was marvellous.

"If you-all," he included Cuff in the general remark, "ain't sot 'bout reaching The Gap at any 'pinted time, I'll scrooge you in. There's a couple of stops to make, and I reckon I'll have to dig us-all out of holes now and then—that shovel ain't in yo' way, is it, Miss?" he asked.

For Joan and Cuff were already among the mail bags and merchandise.

"Nothing is in the way!" Joan replied, "and I'll help you dig us out."

It was just daylight when they started.

It was past noon when, stiff and rather shaken, Joan scrambled out of the old car and, followed by Cuff, noiselessly made her way over the lawn to Ridge House.

She went lightly up the steps, then stood still. Doris Fletcher lay sleeping in the full, warm glow. So quiet was she, so pale and delicate, that for a moment Joan knew a fear that had had its beginning when Patricia passed from life.

The awful uncertainty, the narrow pass over which all travel, were newly realized perils to Joan, and her breath came sharp and quick.

So this was what had happened while she was learning her lessons! She had not learned alone.

"Oh! Aunt Dorrie," she murmured. "You and I have paid and paid—but you never held me back!"

Joan sat down and waited. It was always to be so with her from now on. In that hour a great and tender patience was born that was to calm and guide her future life. She was given, then and there, to draw upon the strength and vision that do not err. And it may have been that in sleep Doris Fletcher, too, was prepared, for when suddenly she opened her eyes upon Joan she was not startled: a gladness that was almost painful overspread her face.

"My darling! You have come at last!" was what she said.

And, as on that night when she had come to plead for freedom, Joan did not, now, rush into human touch. She nodded and whispered:

"I've come as I promised to, Aunt Dorrie. It—it wasn't my chance! Not my big chance, anyhow, but I had to find out, dearie."

"My little girl!"

Joan went nearer; she bent and kissed again and again that radiant face; then, sitting on the floor by the couch, with Cuff huddled close, she touched lightly the high peaks that lay between the parting and this home-coming, but Doris, with that deep understanding, followed laboriously, silently, through the dark valleys.

"I'm rather battered and cropped, Aunt Dorrie—but here I am!"

With this Joan tossed off her hat and voluminous coat.

"Your—hair, Joan? Your beautiful hair!"

"I have been very sick, Aunt Dorrie, my hair and my fat had to go—just enough bones left to hold my soul. But I'm all right now."

"Don't be sorry for me," Joan was pleading, "I'm the gladdest thing alive to-day. I've dropped all the old husks; I've found out just what they are worth, but some of them that seem like husks, dear, are not—I've learned that, too."

"Yes, Joan—and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new bungalow."

There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's part in the past—Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier, but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental reservation concerning it.

Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.

"I—I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head; "she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the world—trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat—I shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."

"Yes, yes—I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys—but she felt the chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light. Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.

The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:

"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."

"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose. When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the least idea what was happening—he saw only the bag of bones that he had rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've learned more than some girls."

And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh—she recalled only the joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the effect she was creating.

It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to announce luncheon. There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.

She gazed long upon Joan before she spoke. It was not surprise she showed, but a slow understanding.

"Miss Joan," she said at last, "seems like you ain't got the world by the tail like you uster have."

Joan threw her head back and laughed.

"No, Mary," she presently replied, "it swung so fast that I fell off—but I'll catch hold soon."

The quiet little luncheon in the quaint dining room did much to restore the long-past relations of Joan with the family. Uncle Jed came in and chuckled with delight. The old man lived mostly in the past now, and followed Mary like a poor crumpled shadow. What held the two together was difficult to understand—but it was the kinship of the hills, the stolid sense of familiarity.

After the meal was over Joan wandered about through the living rooms for a few moments, touching Nancy's loom, but speaking seldom of Nancy.

"I want to hear all about it from her," she explained; and Doris, with Joan's affairs chiefly in her thought, referred merely to Nancy's happiness, their perfect sympathy with it; and if Kenneth's name was mentioned, Joan did not notice it.

At last she went up to her room to rest.

"Quite as if I had never been away, Aunt Doris," she said, "and you don't mind if I take Cuff? The poor little chap has had so many changes that I fear for his nerves!"

Joan went upstairs to the west wing chamber singing a gay little song—her own voice seemed to hold her to the safe, happy present—so she sang.

She paused at the door of her room to read the words carved there long ago by Sister Constance:

And the Hills Shall Bring Peace

It was like someone speaking a welcome.

"Oh! it is all so dear," Joan murmured, "how could it ever have seemed dull!"

Flowers filled the vases, and there was a small, fragrant fire on the hearth—a mere thing of beauty, there was no need of it, for the windows were open to the gentle spring day.

Joan slipped into a loose gown and then stood in the middle of the room leisurely taking in the comfort and joy of every proof of love that she saw.

On the desk by the window lay a pile of unopened letters—she took them up. They were the letters from Doris and Nancy which had been returned from Chicago. Pitiful things that had been so hopefully sent forth only to come back like blighted hopes!

For a moment Joan contemplated throwing them all on the fire. She did not feel equal to re-living the past. It was only by laughing and singing that she could hold her own.

But on second thought she opened the first one—it was from Nancy.

"I better have all I can get to begin on," she reflected; "it will save time."

She sat down in a deep chair and presently she was aware of combating something that was being impressed upon her; she was not conscious of reading it.

"Such things do not happen—not in life——" her sane, cautious self seemed to say. For a second Joan believed her tired brain was playing her false as it had during those awful weeks in the hospital. She closed her eyes; grew calm—then tried again:

Since you are not coming to see Ken now, Joan, I will try to describe him. You remember old Mrs. Tweksbury? Well, my dear boy belongs, in a way, to her——

Again Joan closed her eyes while a faintness saved her from too acute shock. She felt the soft air upon her face; she was conscious of that bewildered whine of poor Cuff. Vaguely she thought that he must be hungry; thirsty—then there was a moment's blank and—the sickening weakness was gone!

With the strength and clarity that sometimes comes at a critical moment Joan's mind worked fast and carried her where hours of quiet thought could not have done.

It was natural, of course, that Nancy should meet Raymond—the most natural thing in the world.

His loving her—so soon after what had happened! That was the thing that gripped and hurt. Joan tried to connect the date of that night in the studio and the one on Nancy's letter. She seemed powerless to do so—the time between was a blank; there was no time! Everything belonged to a previous incarnation.

With a shudder, Joan presently realized the insignificant part she had borne in Kenneth Raymond's life.

The humiliation turned her hot and cold. He had always held but one opinion of her; his loss of self-control had simply torn down the defences behind which he had played with her, amused himself with her, during the dull summer.

She was, to him, one of the women not to be considered, while Nancy was—the other kind!

Joan regarded, as she never had before, the freedom and safety of such girls as Nancy. She could realize the pressure, the favouring environment that surrounded so desirable a thing as this coming together of Raymond and Nancy!

She knew how the same force could blot such as she was supposed to be from the inner circle! How little they counted!

Oh! the bitterness of the knowledge that it was such girls as Patricia—as Raymond believed her—who were not free; who must snatch what they can from life and not resent what goes with it. They must—not care! Outside the code there was no real freedom—because there was no choice! It was a place of chains and bars compared to the other.

The waves of humiliation and shame swept over Joan, but each time she emerged she held her head higher.

"And he left me—to go my way and he went—to Nancy! He did not care!" It was anger now; proud, life-saving anger. "If he had only cared!"

"And why—should he?" The thought was like a dash of cold water in her face.

After all, why should he? It was only play until that awful night! That was the revealing hour of real danger.

Clutching her hands, Joan went over every step of the way upon which Raymond had gone with her.

It had all been a mad escapade in that time of mistaken freedom. He and she had both been brought to the realization of the folly by a blow that had awakened them, not stunned them. They had been forced to acknowledge the danger hidden in themselves. It was in such whirlpools many were lost, but they——

And at this point Joan recalled, as if he were before her now, the look in Raymond's face when he gained control of himself!

Always, since that night, Joan had felt, when thinking of Raymond, that she never wanted to see him again. She knew that he had never held any real part in her life and he would always hold her back, as she might him—from proving the best that was in each other if they came into contact.

With this conclusion reached Joan had gained a secure footing. As a man, detached from herself and her past, she knew that Raymond was worthy of love and happiness, just as, in her heart, she knew that she herself was. But could others understand? Others, like Nancy?

While she had been buffeted on a rough sea, since that stormy night in the studio, Raymond had drifted into his safe harbour, sooner. There was nothing to hold him back—and here Joan began to sob in self-pity; in pity for all girls, like Patricia and her, who were so lightly considered.

"We do not matter!" she murmured. Then she dashed her tears away. "But we must matter!"

She sprang up. She flung the letters upon the embers; she gathered Cuff to her bosom and—laughed!

It was her old, old laugh. The laugh that held in its depth, not scorn of life, but an appreciation of it.

"It's how we take it all, Cuff, my dear, just how we take it! And, Cuff"—here Joan held the little animal off at arms' length and looked into his deep, serious eyes—"I'm going to get the world by the tail again—you watch me!"



CHAPTER XXIV

"O, friend never strike sail to a fear."

Because the woman in Joan had not been hurt by her experiences, because it was only the wildness of youth that had carried her to the verge of making mistakes and then sent her reeling back, she reacted quickly. She was no longer the reckless, heedless Joan—the change made Martin frown. He put full value on her cropped hair and thin body—he had grappled with the scourge, and he knew!

He presently found himself in friendly sympathy with this new, patient, tender Joan—they had much to say to each other.

Nancy was not so keen about the change. Joan had come back—Joan was putting into life all that it lacked. This was enough for Nancy! The spring days were dreams of bliss and she radiated joy.

"Ken will adore you, Joan!" she confided. "You see, he has a twisted idea about you just because you weren't with us all, but when he sees you, darling, he'll be on his knees before you as we all are!"

"I'd love to get my first view of him in that attitude," Joan laughingly replied, "but on the whole, I'd rather take him standing."

During those waiting days, until Raymond came to marry Nancy, Ridge House quivered with excited preparation.

"Of course!" Joan had agreed to the quiet wedding idea, "we must have it as Nancy wishes, but it must be perfect."

So Joan sewed and designed—some of Patricia's gift was hers—and often her face fell into pensive lines as she worked, for she seemed to see Patricia as she used to sit, well into the night, planning and evolving the dainty garments that others were to wear.

"My turn!" Joan comforted herself with the thought; "my turn now, dear Pat."

And then the day came when Kenneth Raymond was to arrive. Mrs. Tweksbury could be safely left in New York. She was resigned to the wedding but deplored the necessity of being absent.

"I know something will go wrong," she said to Kenneth; "do be careful and make sure that you are really married, Ken! They are so sloppy in the South, and it would be quite like Doris Fletcher, if she couldn't get that candlestick preacher of hers, to let Dave Martin or any one else read the service. Doris never could put the emphasis of life where it belonged."

Kenneth laughed merrily.

"Nancy and I will see to it, Aunt Emily," he replied, "that we are tied up close. Just use your time, until I bring her back, in thinking of the good days on ahead—when we'll have her always, you and I."

Mrs. Tweksbury relaxed.

"She's a blessed child, Ken. She always was."

Raymond arrived late one May afternoon. Joan was dressing for dinner, dressing slowly, tremblingly—she did not mean to go downstairs until dinner was served if she could avoid it.

She had worked late, worked until she was weary enough to plead an hour's rest, and now she stood by the window overlooking The Gap.

"I've got the world in my grip," she thought, "but the whirl makes me dizzy."

Silver River was rushing along rather noisily—there had been a big storm the night before and the water had not yet calmed down; the rocks shone in the last rays of the sun, and just then Joan looked up at The Rock!

There it was—The Ship! Sails set and the western light full upon it.

For a moment Joan gazed, trying to remember the old superstition. Then her face grew tender.

"Whatever happens," she murmured, "it shall not happen to Nancy. I've spoiled enough of her plays—she shall not be hurt now."

The thought held all the essentials of a prayer and it gave an uplift.

Then Joan turned to her toilet. Recalling Patricia's theory about the artistic helps to one's appearance, she worked fervently with her slim little body and delicate face.

A bit of fluffing and the lovely hair rose like an aura about the smiling face. The eyes did not seem too large when one smiled—so Joan practised a smile! The gowns, one by one, were laid out upon the bed and regarded religiously; finally, one was chosen that Patricia had loved.

"My lamb," Joan recalled the words and look, "a true artist knows her high marks. This gown is a revealment of my genius."

It was a pale blue crepe, silver-touched and graceful; a long, heavy, silver cord held it at the waistline, and the loose, lacy sleeves made the slim arms look very lovely.

"If ever I needed bucking, Pat, dear, I need it now!" whispered Joan, and her eyes dimmed.

She heard the pleasant bustle below; the light laughter, the cheery calls. She heard Raymond's voice when he greeted Nancy—it startled her by its familiarity and its strangeness.

"He sounds as if he were in church," mused Joan. She felt as the old do as they re-live their youth.

There was candlelight in the dining room when Joan entered. The family were all assembled, for Doris had sent for Joan only at the last moment.

"Ken, dear, this is Joan."

Nancy said it as if she were flouting all the foolish things any one had ever felt about Joan. Pride, deep affection, rang in her voice. "This is Joan!"

Joan went slowly, smilingly forward. She saw Raymond's knuckles grow white and hard as his hands gripped the back of his chair. His eyes dilated, and for a moment he could not speak. Finally he managed:

"So this—is Joan!" and went forward to greet her.

"I reckon they will all get this shock," thought Doris; "what they have thought about the child ought to shame them. Emily Tweksbury was always a snob."

Martin, from under his shaggy brows, watched the scene curiously. He, like everyone else, was, unconsciously, on guard where Nancy was concerned. This frank surprise was gratifying for Joan, but it placed Nancy, for a moment, to one side.

Joan had never looked lovelier; never more self-controlled. She was holding herself, and Raymond, too, by firm will power. He must not betray anything—he owed her and Nancy that! There was no wrong. No suggestion of it must enter in.

In another moment the danger was over; the colour rose to Raymond's face.

"I—I hadn't expected anything quite so—splendid," he said.

"You are very kind," Joan had her hands in his, now; "you see—I've been wandering in strange places; I am rather an outlaw and the best any one could do for me was to wait and let me speak for myself. I'm glad you approve!"

"I certainly do!" Raymond said, and gratefully joined the circle as it sat down.

As the time passed the situation caught Joan's feverish imagination; she dared much; she was cruel but fascinating. She proposed, after dinner, to read palms—explaining that she and Pat had learned the tricks.

At the name of "Pat" Raymond's grave eyes fixed themselves upon her. Joan saw the firm lips draw together, and she paused in her gaiety, sensing something she did not quite understand.

In the living room by the fire Joan again grew witchy. She insisted upon proving her cleverness at palm-reading. Raymond dared not refuse, but he showed plain disapproval.

"It's rot!" Martin broke in, "but here goes, Joan!" And spread his honest hand upon the altar.

Joan had a good field now for her wit, and she set the company in a merry mood. When she touched upon Martin's nephew, which, of course, she wickedly did, she made an impression.

"See here," Martin broke in, "this isn't palm-reading, you little fraud—you're trying to be funny trading on what you've heard but couldn't know for yourself."

"That's part of the trick, Uncle David. Now, Nan, dear, let me have that small paw of yours."

Frankly Nancy extended the left hand upon which glittered Raymond's diamond.

"The right one, too, Nan darling! What dear, soft, pink things!" Joan bent and kissed them. "Such happy hands; good, true hands. Every line—unbroken. Running from start to finish—as it should run."

"A stupid pair of hands, I call them." Nancy puckered her lips.

"They are blessed hands, Nan."

Raymond went behind Nancy's chair and fixed his eyes upon Joan—he was almost pleading with her to have done with the dangerous play.

"Aunt Dorrie?" Joan turned to her, ignoring Raymond.

"My hands can tell you nothing, Joan, dear," Doris said; "I've been a coward. See, my hands are flabby inside—the hands of a woman who has had much too easy a time. 'Who has reached forth—but never grasped.'"

At this Martin came and stood over Doris. Joan looked up and suddenly her eyes dimmed. She seemed alone. Alone among them all. There was no one beside her—they seemed, Martin and Raymond, to be defending their loved ones from her.

"And now, my brother Ken!" The words were like a call.

"Oh, let me off!" Raymond tried to speak lightly.

"No, indeed! The safety of my family is at stake!"

Raymond was inwardly angry, but he sat down and defiantly spread his hands.

Joan regarded them silently for a dramatic moment, then she quietly opened her own.

"Isn't this odd," she said, "there is a line in your hand and mine—alike!"

Every eye was fixed on the four hands.

"Right here——" Joan traced it.

"What does it mean?" Martin asked.

"Capacity for friendship; that we are rather daring; not afraid of many things—but canny enough to know——"

"What, Joan?—out with it!" It was Doris who spoke.

"Canny enough—to distrust ourselves once in awhile."

Martin gave a guffaw.

"Joan," he said, "you ought to be sent to bed. Your eyes are too big and your colour too high. Stop this foolishness and let us take a turn on the river road. The moonlight is filling it—it's too rare to be overlooked."

So they went out, keeping together and talking happily until it was time to return to the house; there, Raymond managed to say to Joan, just as they were parting:

"This has been rather a shock, you know, I wish I could see you alone—for a moment."

She looked up at him, and all the mad daring was gone from her eyes.

"Is there anything to say?" she whispered. "Now or—ever?"

"Yes."

And Raymond knew that Joan would come back.

He sat on the broad porch, opening to The Gap, and smoked. The house grew still with that holy quietness that holds all love safe.

Then came a slight noise; someone was coming!

It was significant that Raymond should know at once who it was. All the love and yearning in the world would not have drawn Nancy through the sleeping house to him. The knowledge made him smile grimly, happily.

Doris, once having said good-night, meant it, and Martin had gone to his bungalow.

"Well—here I am." Joan appeared and sat down, looking as if she were doing the most commonplace thing in life. It was the old daring that had led to dangerous ways.

"Is it—safe?"

"Why not?" It was the same frank, childlike look.

"But—Nancy; your Aunt——"

Joan twisted her mouth humorously.

"We'll have to risk them—you said you had something to say."

"Joan! Good Lord! but it's great to have a name to call you by—you drove me pretty hard to-night. I make no complaint—except——" He paused.

"For Nancy?" Joan asked.

"Yes! Joan, she's wonderful. She's the sort that makes a man rather afraid until he realizes that he means to keep her as she is—forever." This was spoken with a definiteness of purpose that made Joan recoil. Again he was defending Nancy from what he had believed Joan to have been!

"I wonder"—she looked away—"I wonder if any one could do that? Or if it would be wise if he could?"

"Joan, when I saw you to-night, after the shock—I could have fallen on my knees in gratitude—there have been hours when the fear I had about you nearly drove me crazy; made me feel I had no right—to Nancy."

"So you—did remember, for a little time?"

"Yes. I went to the Brier Bush—Miss Gordon gave me to understand that you had gone away with someone—married, she thought.

"Joan—who was—Pat?"

For a moment Joan could not understand, then, as was the way with her, the whole truth flooded in.

Raymond had taken thought for her—Elspeth had deceived him—oh! how hard Elspeth could be. Joan recalled scenes behind closed doors when Elspeth Gordon dealt with her assistants!

"And when you thought—I had—gone away—you felt free?" Joan's face quivered. Raymond nodded. How easy it was to talk to Joan. How quick she was to comprehend and help one over a hard stretch!

"Joan—who was Pat?" That seemed to be the vital thing now. And then Joan told him. As she spoke in low, trembling tones, she saw his head bow in his hands; she knew that he was suffering with her, for her; as good men do for their women. Joan was conscious of this attitude of Raymond's—she was reinstated; fixed, at last, where she could be understood: she belonged to his world!

"Poor little girl! After the beast in me dashed your card house to atoms you made another try—alone!" Raymond raised his face.

"No—I had Pat." At that instant Patricia symbolized the link between the unreal and the real.

"Yes, for a little while—but, Joan, it didn't pay—the danger you ran and all that—did it? Such girls as you cannot afford such experiences."

"Yes. Having had Pat, I am able to see—wider."

Joan was thinking of the girls whom Raymond could not have understood or sympathized with! Girls such as she might so easily have been like—unless—— Unless what?

"Joan, you and I always said we could speak plain truth, didn't we?" Kenneth's words brought her back.

"Of course!"

"Well," Raymond dropped his eyes and flushed, "you really didn't care—not in the one, particular way, did you? It was only play; you meant that?"

"It was only play, Ken. The suffering came because we did not know what we were playing with. It's the not knowing that matters."

"Joan, you have seen the worst in me——?"

"Yes, and the best, Ken. It was like seeing you come back from hell—unharmed."

"Do you think I should tell Nancy? Put her on her guard? There is something in me——"

At this Joan leaned forward with a new light on her face—it was the maternal taking shape.

"No, Ken, you must not tell Nan. With her it is the not knowing that matters. She must be guarded; not put on guard. I know now that Nan will be safe with you; I wasn't sure before; but if you raised a doubt in her mind all would go wrong. She was always like that."

"But——" for a moment a beaten terror rose in Raymond's eyes.

Joan nodded bravely to him.

"You and I, Ken, must never give fear a chance. Once we know, we must not turn back."

She stood up, looking tall and commanding.

Raymond rose also and took her hands.

"You're great, Joan," he said, "simply great. You understand—though how you do, the Lord only knows.

"Joan!" Raymond flung out the question that was tormenting him. "Joan, why didn't we—care the other way?"

"I think," Joan looked ancient, but pathetically young, "I think men and women don't, when they understand too well. And the line in our hands explains that, perhaps," she smiled wanly. "You see, Miss Jones and Mr. Black are—paying!"

"Joan, go now, dear. Others might not understand." Raymond at that moment grimly shut the door on his one playtime!

"And you—would hate to have them misunderstand about me—for Nancy's sake?"

"No, Joan, for your own. You're too big and fine—to have any more hurting things knock you. May I kiss—you good-night?"

For a moment something in Joan shrank, then she raised her face.

"Yes. Good-night—brother Ken."

For another moment they stood silent. Then:

"What was it that made you so hard at dinner, Joan, and makes you so sweet now?"

"Ken, I thought that you—had not tried to find out about me—after that night!"

"Did the mere going back really matter?"

"It meant everything, Ken."

"How?"

"Oh! can you not understand? If you had just—not cared I would have been afraid to-night for Nancy! Ken, I believe you went back to pay for all our folly—had I been willing to accept; had I—cared in the way—you suspected."

"Yes, Joan. I would have." Raymond said this solemnly. "That's what I went for."

"And you should not have paid! Girls—must not—let others pay more than is owed—I've learned that, Ken. But it was the going back that made it—right for you to—go on. Ken, for Nancy's dear sake I am glad it was—you and I!"

"For that I thank God!" Again Raymond bent his head. This time his lips fell on the open palms of the hands with those lines in them—lines like his own!

"Some day you are going to be happy, Joan."

"I am happy now. I was never happy, really, before. You see, I was always looking for myself in the past; now I think I have found myself—rather a dilapidated self, but mine own. It's going to be very interesting, this getting acquainted, and"—here Joan was thinking of the last day in the hospital and the rooms opening to the sweet singer—"and I'm going to touch and feel life instead of merely looking out through my own small door. And so—good-night."

She was gone as she had come—not stealthily, but noiselessly; not afraid, but cautious.



CHAPTER XXV

"This shall be thy reward—the ideal shall be real to thee."

Doris and Joan were in the living room of Ridge House trying to make things look "as usual" in the pathetic way people do after a loved one has gone forth never to return in quite the same relation.

Doris paused by Nancy's loom and touched gently the unfinished pattern.

"Dear little Nan," she said; "she used to make such dreadful tangles, but she learned to do beautiful work. This is quite perfect—as far as the child has gone."

Joan was on her knees polishing away at the fireboard. The smoke-covered wood with its motto she meant to restore. She looked up brightly as Doris spoke. Joan was accepting many things besides Nancy's going away as Raymond's wife; accepting them without question, without explanation, but with perfect understanding. She understood fully about David Martin and Doris—her heart beat quick at Martin's lifelong devotion; at Doris's withholding. She understood, too, she believed, why the coming to the South had been necessary—the look in Doris's eyes was the same that had haunted Patricia's—the look that holds the unfailing message.

"Aunt Dorrie, Nancy is the belonging kind. No matter how many places and people share her she will always belong to us and the hills. She told me that before she went. She meant it, too. She'll finish the weaving quite naturally, soon—New York is not far."

Doris gave a soft laugh. Almost she resented the constant tone of comfort, Joan's attitude of authority.

"No; it seems nearer and nearer all the time—since my strength has returned. We will have part of the winter in New York and Nan and Ken will be coming here, and there is your music, Joan!" Doris assumed authority and Joan submitted sweetly.

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie, and you and I will scour these hills and get acquainted with our people and have trips abroad, perhaps. It is simply splendid—the stretch on ahead."

The sun-lighted room was still radiant with the decorations of Nancy's wedding. Tall jars of roses woodbine and "rhoderdeners," as old Jed called them, were everywhere. Nancy had only departed two days before.

"What a charming wedding it was!" Doris mused, patting the loom; "every time I think of it something new and unusual recurs."

Joan rubbed away and laughed gaily.

"Father Noble looked like a precious old saint," she said. "I declare when he told about Mary I was almost afraid he'd be translated before he had a chance to marry Nan."

How little Joan realized that she was touching upon a mighty thing; how little either she or Doris were really ever to know.

Doris came to the hearth and sat down in a deep chair, her face had suddenly grown serious.

"I was thinking of that incident," she said.

"Joan, I have always misjudged Mary. She has always puzzled me. I have thought her hard and selfish—the people here have thought her mean." Doris paused, and Joan looked around and remarked:

"She's a blessed trump. Nan always understood Mary better than I; Mary liked Nan the best of all, but I'm going to cultivate Mary. There is something about her like these hidden words—it must be brought out."

"To think of her caring for and loving that poor, deserted creature on that lonely peak all this time!" Doris went back to the story. "Father Noble says the trail up there is the worst on the mountain, yet Mary went every day. She mended the cabin and kept the old woman clean and clothed and happy—to the very end. Think of her alone in that cabin at night when the poor soul passed away! Mary was always so timid, too, and superstitious—and we never suspecting!"

"And then," Joan took up the thread, "those ten miles to get Father Noble so that there might be a proper funeral, and Nancy's wedding having to wait while they saw the thing properly through. Oh! Aunt Dorrie, it's like a glorious old comedy with so much humanity in it that it hurts. Can you not just see that funeral as Father Noble described it?"

Joan stood up, her eyes shining; the polishing cloth held out daintily from the pretty blue gown.

"'Twilight and evening star' effect, and those silent, amazed folks that Mary had compelled to come up the trail; the children and dogs and that comical boy tolling an old, cracked dinner bell; the procession to the clump of trees where the old women's children and grandchildren are buried—why, Aunt Doris, I see it all like a wonderful picture! There's no place on earth like these hills."

Doris saw it, too, as Joan graphically portrayed it—but she was thinking still of Mary; she was baffled.

"And yet," she said, thoughtfully, "you cannot get Mary to talk about it, and she turned quite fiercely upon poor old Jed when he asked his simple questions. She's hard as well as gentle."

"And old Jed"—Joan waved her cloth—"here's to him! Think of him crying because The Ship wouldn't sail off The Rock and insisting that the old woman on Thunder Peak had something in her arms—that ought to have gone on The Ship, not in the ground. The place and the people, Aunt Dorrie, are like a Grimm fairy tale. I'm going to have the time of my life reading them and playing with them."

Joan was thinking, as she often did now, of touching the lives of others—all others who pressed close to her. She had never been so keen or vivid before—the calls upon her were awakening the depths of her nature. She had travelled far only to come home to find Truth.

"I am afraid I shall never be able to understand these silent, unresponsive folk, Joan." Doris shook her head—she was realizing her own shortcomings; her incapacity for new undertakings; "they frighten me. I have always been able to make an ideal seem real, dear, but I am afraid I fail utterly when it comes to making the real seem ideal—particularly when it is not lovely."

"Well, then, duckie, just let me do the interpreting. Father Noble is going to take me under his big, flapping capes and speak a good word for me."

Doris smiled. In the growing conviction that Joan had indeed come back to her she was happy and content. She rarely rebelled now. Her one great adventure was turning out perfectly; she was thankful she had taken David Martin's advice and kept her secret. She had been fair; she had made no personal claims, but she had done what Martin had once suggested that all mothers should do—"point out the channel and keep the lights burning." There were moments when she wished that Joan were more communicative—but she must accept what was offered. Nancy had gone forth radiant to her chosen life and Joan had come back—not defeated but clearer of vision. What more could any woman ask of her children? Her children!

Doris bent and touched Joan's pretty hair.

"I love to think of the look on Ken's face and Nancy's," she said.

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie, it was wonderful. Your opening the window and letting the west light in did the trick. It was inspiration—nothing less."

Doris nodded, recalling why she had opened the window—Meredith had seemed nearer!

"You sang beautifully, Joan," for Joan had sung at Nancy's request a wedding hymn. "Your voice has gained a richness, dear. Next winter——"

"Yes—Aunt Dorrie!" Joan broke in nervously, then suddenly she dropped on her knees by Doris's chair and said softly:

"Aunt Dorrie, I'm going to ask some very—queer questions. You see, while I was away—I missed a lot—and I want to catch up.

"If—if—Nan hadn't loved Ken, wouldn't you and Uncle David have wanted her to care for Clive Cameron?"

Joan felt that Nancy had garnered all that she had sown during her learning time, and often the thought made her lonely, detached her from them. She believed that Cameron's absence from the wedding covered a hurt that her loved ones hid from her.

"Yes, Joan," Doris replied very simply, "but—we feel now that it is best as it is."

"Why, Aunt Dorrie?"

"I cannot explain. When you meet Clive Cameron"—Joan winced—"you will understand."

"Did—did Clive Cameron—care?"

Doris laughed.

"No. It was quite comic, Joan, the whole proceeding. Mrs. Tweksbury, Uncle David, and I played matchmakers with a vengeance—but we bungled frightfully, and then Clive Cameron wedged his big body in between Nancy and several young men who might have made trouble, and—and—" Doris thought for an illuminating word. Then—"whistled Ken on!"

"Why, that's awfully funny, Aunt Dorrie—I rather imagined that Ken plunged!"

"No, he always felt attracted by Nancy—she was wonderfully attractive to men, Joan, but I honestly believe it was Clive who made Ken realize. Ken is the slow, sure sort; while Clive is rather devastating, you know. He doesn't waste time or energy—when he sees his way he goes! He is very like what his uncle was when I first knew him—only surer of himself." Doris's lips trembled.

"More bumptious, maybe!" Joan laughed. She was again in high spirits, though why she could hardly have told.

"No, he isn't, Joan!" Doris took up cudgels for the absent Cameron. "You mustn't get that idea. He's the most humble of fellows—but he has a vision. David says he plods along after his dreams and ideals, but when he grips them—well, he grips! I see now how right he was about Nancy and Ken. They are suited to each other."

"Yes—they're the carrying-on sort, Aunt Dorrie"; Joan looked wise and confident. "They're like their kind—Nan is like you. Away back in the Dondale days she used to gloat over all that went to your making, all your grandfathers and grandmothers. She was fore-ordained to carry on, and so was Ken. They'd be done for on paths without signboards. Aunt Dorrie——"

"Yes, dear."

"I wonder why it was in me to—to well, not to carry on?"

Doris bent and laid her thin, fair cheek against the short, bright hair again.

"Your way, little girl," she whispered, "was to fly. You had to try wings."

"Well, I'm a homing pigeon, I reckon." And Joan tossed her short hair back.

Just then there was the toot of a horn outside.

"Uncle David!" Joan exclaimed, jumping up; "and by the manner of his toot I get an impression of exhilaration.

"Hello, Uncle Davey!" For Martin was filling the long window with his big presence.

He smiled on Joan—he did it very naturally these days. The girl was becoming strangely dear and companionable; then he looked at Doris as he always did, eagerly, gratefully.

"Jump into your coat and hat," he said to her with a ring in his voice; "I've just had a telegram. Bud's coming!"

"Oh! David," Doris's face flushed rosily. "And you want me to go with you to meet him. I am glad."

"Yes," Martin replied. Doris was already on her way from the room. Joan dropped to the hearth and resumed her rubbing.

So the inevitable was upon her! She must not flinch! She wondered if this was the last dropped stitch she must take up?

"Want me to go, too, Uncle David?" she asked, keeping her back rigid.

"No," Martin was regarding the straight set shoulders and the pretty cropped hair. "No! You have too shocking an effect upon young men. They look as if they had seen you before! They must take you gradually." Martin laughed and lighted a cigar. He was recalling Raymond's face the night Joan had first appeared before him.

Joan struggled to keep control of the situation—she suddenly smeared her face with her sooty fingers and turned with a grimace.

"Am I discovered even in this disguise?" she said. Then:

"Uncle Davey, I believe you have your private opinion of me still."

"I have. I'll tell you now what it is—your face needs washing."

"I mean—really!" the smudges acted as a mask and diverted attention. "I wager you think girls like me—the me that was, the working girls—are, generally speaking, hounding young men on the matrimonial trail."

"Not necessarily that trail," Martin was teasing.

"You're all wrong, Uncle Davey, as far as most of them are concerned. They're young and love a good time and some of them have to learn a lot—learn not to play on volcanoes. But for downright, running-to-earth methods, look to such girls as Nan. They have the tide with them. Men, unless they're there to be caught, better watch out!"

"Oh! come, child, don't be sinister."

"I'm not, Uncle David," Joan's eyes shone; she was thinking of Patricia; "but you, everybody, lose a lot if they do not really know the truth about women—the real truth."

"My dear," David was quite serious, "I'm no longer hard or misjudging—I was frightened at your aunt's methods with you, but you're proving me wrong every day."

"You should have trusted her more, Uncle David."

"Yes, you are right, in part. I should have trusted her less—in some ways."

"About me?"

"No. About herself." Martin flecked the ashes from his cigar. "And now," he said with a huge sigh that seemed to sweep all regrets before it, "go and wash your face!"

Joan ran away, and when she came back the room was empty and the honk-honk of Martin's horn sounded down the river road.

Then, as often happens when one stands in an empty room, Joan was conscious of a supersensitiveness. She, quite naturally, attributed it to the ordeal she was about to undergo—the meeting with Clive Cameron and her late talk with Martin. Must she always be on the defensive? Must she always feel that her volcano had blown her up when really she had escaped by its light?

While there was a certain amount of pleasurable excitement in the meeting with Cameron, while it lacked all that her meeting with Raymond had held, still her past experiences were of so uncommon a nature that she could not contemplate them without nervous strain, and she wished that she might have had a longer reprieve before Cameron came.

"With nothing really to be ashamed of," she thought, "I feel like a criminal dodging justice. I wish something so big would come that I could lose myself in it."

Then she walked to the window overlooking The Gap.

"It's no easy matter, Joan my lamb!" almost it seemed as if it were Patricia speaking, "to tie both ends of the rainbow together." Joan smiled at her thought.

"Dear, dear old Pat!" she spoke the words aloud. "The very thought of you—braces me."

Joan was still on the backward trail. She did not often tread it, but when she did she always returned starry-eyed and brave-hearted. That was her reward: the reward that she could share with no one—except as it helped her to live.

Presently she turned to her task of restoring the motto on the fireboard. She worked vigorously, intently, and then leaned back to get a better view.

Suddenly, as if they were alive, the words emerged from the last sweep of the cloth.

"Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire."

The meaning broke like sunshine from the clouds. It made Joan laugh.

"Well, of all the funny things," she said aloud, "and from the Bible, too," for "Isaiah" was brought into evidence by another rub. "This house is certainly haunted."

Just then a sharp knock on the panels of the door, set wide to the sweet summer day, startled Joan and brought her to her feet, with that quivering of the nerves that betokened an almost psychic state.

A tall man stood in the doorway. His clothes—good ones, well fashioned—were wrinkled and travel stained. They gave the impression of having been slept in. The man was like his garments—the worse for wear but, originally, of good material.

Joan recognized that at once—after she got over the surprise of finding that he was not Clive Cameron.

"Good morning," she said, quietly, while a familiarity about the stranger puzzled her. "Come in and sit down, please."

The man came in, walking stiffly, his eyes fixed upon Joan in a way that confused her. She felt that she ought to remember him, but could not.

"I've tied my horse down by the road," the stranger said, sitting down by the long table, "I got the beast at the station. The distance was longer than I imagined and the roads are—to say the least—not oiled." He laughed and flecked the dust from his coat—still keeping his eyes on Joan.

"Is your aunt at home?" he continued. So then, the man should be recognized—but he still eluded Joan's memory.

"No, she is not. She will not be back for some time. I am sorry that I cannot recall you—I am sure I have seen you—but——"

"You'd have a remarkable memory if you did recall me," there was a sneer in the laugh that followed the words; "you were very young when you saw me before. Perhaps I can help you—you are—Joan, are you not?"

"Yes." Joan sat down opposite the man—her hands were clasped close.

"I'm George Thornton, formerly of the Philippines, later of South Africa, more recently of New York, where I stayed long enough to learn my way here. Incidentally, I am your father."

Had Joan been standing she would have fallen. As it was, she quickly overcame the dizziness that made the speaker seem to dance about and, by gripping her hands closer, she steadied herself.

"I suppose you have never heard of me before?"

"Oh! yes!" Joan listened to her own voice critically; "Aunt Doris told Nancy and me all about you."

"All, eh?" Thornton could barely keep the surprise and relief from his voice. This simplified matters and he could talk freely.

"What do you want?" The question as Joan spoke it sounded brutal. "I do not suppose you have come here, after all these years, for nothing."

Thornton flushed angrily, and his resentment of old flamed into speech.

"I've come to make your aunt—pay. When I saw you before—you and your supposed sister—your aunt had all the cards in her hands, but I told her then that murder would out—and by God! it has—and now it is pay day." The years had coarsened Thornton.

Joan stared at the man across the table as if he had suddenly gone mad before her eyes. She was frightened; she heard distant voices—the cook speaking to Jed—she wanted to call out; meant to—but instead she asked dully:

"What do you mean by—my supposed sister?"

Thornton shifted his position and leaned forward over the table.

"So—eh? She didn't tell you all? I see. She confined the story to—me. And—you've believed all your life—that—that the girl, Nancy, was your sister? Well—by heaven! Doris has taken a chance."

"You have got to tell me what you mean!"

Joan was no longer filled with personal fear—it was wider, deeper than that.

"And you must not lie," she added, fiercely—anger was giving her strength. Thornton regarded her through half-closed eyes.

"Lying isn't my big line," he said, roughly, "if it had seen, I might have escaped the infernal mess that I hatched by—telling the truth in the first place. Since your aunt has neglected her duty—I will tell you the truth!"

Thornton took small heed of the stricken girl near him. Hate and revenge for the moment swayed him, but not for an instant did Joan disbelieve what was burning into her consciousness. Truth rang in every word of the almost unbelievable story. And while she listened and shrank back she was conscious of inanimate things taking on human attributes that pleaded with her. The chair by the hearth where Doris had but recently sat smiling so happily because her ideals had been real to her! Nancy and she, Joan seemed to know, were the ideals—Nancy and she! For them Doris had done the one, big, daring thing in her life. The loom by the window suddenly cried out, too, as if Nancy were bending over it—working on her unfinished but perfect pattern.

"Oh!" The word escaped Joan and found its way to Thornton's sympathy at last. He paused as he watched the suffering his words were causing.

"It's a damned ugly thing she did to you," he said, "a damned ugly one. I warned her about the time when you would have to know. I've travelled a long distance to set you straight. She'll pay—now!"

Joan tried to speak—failed—then tried again.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, huskily, at last.

Thornton regarded her with a dark frown.

"Do?" he repeated, "claim my own—and let her pay."

"What good—would that do—now?"

Thornton stared. Where had he heard words like those before? Why should they seem to defy him? defeat him?

"I'm going to have the truth known at last or——"

"Or—what?"

Shame held Thornton silent for a moment, but life had him at close grip—he was beaten unless help were given.

"You think they will enjoy—the Tweksbury crowd—I mean—to know the parentage or—lack of it—of—the girl just palmed off on them as a Thornton? I may not be all that could be desired, but such as I am—I'm the saving clause." Thornton's coarseness was more and more evident. "I wonder if you can justify this mess?" he asked, suddenly, with a new interest.

Joan was not trying to justify it—she was seeing it only as the beautiful thing Doris had accomplished by that power of hers to make real her ideal. It had been, still was, her one hold on life.

"It's too late to talk about that now," she answered, slowly, and thinking fast and far, far ahead.

"I imagine it will be expensive not to think of it; but she'll pay!" Thornton was braced for definite action. The girl opposite confused him. She looked so young; so agonized—so brave. She was so like—— At this Thornton turned away his eyes. Only by so doing could he hold to his course.

Slowly, like one dragging a heavy load, Joan was reaching a place of clear understanding. Flashed upon her aching brain were blinding pictures.

"One child was a forsaken waif of these hills——" Thornton had said. "Thunder Peak! The old woman! Mary's silent and secret mission!" rang the echo. Joan's eyes widened; her breath caught in her throat while she compelled herself to weigh and consider—though she did it in the dark. Then suddenly Mary became a tower of strength. Mary!

Then Nancy's loveliness and charm gave their convincing evidence against Joan's own characteristics. At this she shuddered.

"Doris said she never knew which child was mine," Thornton's words still echoed.

"But she must have known!" Joan bowed her head, and all the loneliness of her life gathered in this moment of supreme acceptance. She knew, now, why she was, as she was; she knew why they could all cling together. There was something that could hold them together; something stronger than Doris could command. There was a pay day! It had come!

"I do not see," Joan spoke at last, and her voice was heavy and even, "why you should think you can harm Nancy. If what you have told is—I mean, because what you have told is true—Nancy cannot be hurt—Nancy is—is yours! You would never doubt that if you saw her. I suppose you think"—here Joan's eyes flamed—"you can get more by attacking Nancy."

At this Thornton startled Joan by throwing his head back and laughing aloud, fearlessly, roughly.

She was alarmed. The servants—what would they think? Mary—suppose Mary should appear? But above all else Joan wanted to get this hideous thing over before Doris returned. Never for an instant did she falter there.

But the laugh continued, less noisy but more reckless.

"Well, by heaven, you are game!" Thornton managed to form the words, and in his eyes there was a glint of admiration. His old sporting spirit awakened—he knew the genuine ring of metal.

"Why, see here, my girl," he drew from his pocket a gold locket and an old daguerreotype; "you don't suppose I came without evidence, do you?"

Mechanically Joan reached across the table and took the articles—her fingers were stiff and cold, but she managed to unclasp the cases. Thornton was watching her; he had stopped laughing.

In the locket were two miniatures—one of Meredith Fletcher, one of Thornton painted just after their marriage—Doris had the duplicate of Meredith's.

"That," Thornton spoke deliberately, as Joan turned to the other, "is my mother! She and I were very like."

Joan drew her breath in sharp.

Once, back in the Dondale days, she had sung some of her old English ballads in costume—a quaint picture of her had been taken at the time and, for an instant, she thought this was it—she vaguely wondered how Thornton had got it—she could not think clearly—her brain was growing cloudy. Then she turned the old case over in her hand and looked at it mutely.

"They discounted your resemblance to my side of the house." There was something almost pathetic underlying the sneer in Thornton's voice. "I did not know myself until I came in the door—but when I saw you, it was as if my mother stood here."

Joan could not speak, but, as a change of wind turned the mists in The Gap to the east instead of from the east, so her clouds were drifting; drifting, and a flood of light was blinding her. She looked up—her eyes were shining with tears that did not fall; her lips twitched nervously, but she was happy; happy. The sensation brought strength and purpose. She did not seem alone—she was close, close to them who, unseen, but vital, were pressing near; waiting for her decision—now that she understood! What had her unconscious preparation done for her?

Oh! she would not fail them. She was almost ready to prove herself. In a moment she could master her emotions and be worthy.

Then she looked at Thornton and throbbed with hate; but as she looked her mood again changed—she felt such pity as she had never known in her life before.

It repelled; it did not attract—but it was pity that called forth a desire to help. Clasping the silent witnesses of the truth in her cold hands Joan spoke:

"No! Aunt Doris and Nancy shall not pay," she said, quietly.

"Who—then?" Thornton felt the ground slipping from under him. The young creature opposite looked so old and hard that she impressed him in spite of himself.

"You and I—will pay!"

By those words Joan took her stand with Thornton, not against him. He winced.

"Think—think what all this means," she faltered.

Thornton did think. He thought back of the girl confronting him with his mother's eyes. The backward path was black and wreck-strewn; it led—where?

"Aunt Doris has told me of—of my mother! You and I owe my mother——" here Joan choked and Thornton burst in:

"But is it right and decent—that this imposition should be put upon innocent people? That girl—may turn out to be——"

But Joan was not heeding. She paused and looked at the unfinished but perfect work upon the loom!

"It is too late now to consider that," she whispered, brokenly. Then: "Aunt Doris has saved Nancy. You need have no fear.

"Oh! can you not see what a chance you have to—to help this wonderful thing Aunt Doris did?"

"Help? How?" Thornton sunk back in his chair. He was crushed—but in the depths of his soul something was stirring; something that he believed had died when he heard of the birth of the girl across the table who was pleading with him for those who had made her what she was!

"How?"

"Why—by simply—going away!"

Thornton almost broke again into that maddening laugh, but caught himself in time.

"That sounds—devilish easy!" he said, furiously, but the flare of passion died at birth, for Joan was saying:

"I have some money of my own—I will send it all to you. I will get money for you—as long as you need it—but after a time you will—not need it! And then"—here Joan stretched out her clasped hands—"I know it sounds almost impossible—but it can be made true—you can come back to us all; help us keep the secret, and—watch with us. You and I owe this—to Aunt Doris; to my mother! It may be your—your—recompense."

Thornton got upon his feet. He held to the table to steady himself, and a subtle dignity grew upon him.

"I am going away," he said, slowly, "until I can think over this infernal business by myself. The time to act hasn't come yet—that's certain. I don't want—your money; not now. If I do, I'll send for it. If I ever come again it will be to—" he paused, flung his head up—"to see you; to look on at the working out of the damned mess."

He reached out for the locket and case.

"Good-bye," he said, gruffly. "You need not be afraid—not now."

"I am not afraid." Joan rose weakly. "I shall wait for you. I am sure you will come.

"Good-bye; good-bye!"

Outside Thornton stumbled against old Jed.

"The Ship's sailing!" the quavering, foolish words startled Thornton; "you best get aboard, sir, anchor's lifting!" Jed staggered away, grinning and muttering.

Thornton stared after the swaying figure. Then he thought of the Philippines, his old battle ground—he would go back! The idea caught and held him.

On the river road his horse stood nibbling the grass; a woman was beside it—a lean, stooping woman with a home-spun shawl clutched over her sunken breasts by one hand, in the other was a massive, rusty gun!

She turned and confronted Thornton. She knew him at once, but he merely frowned at her as he eyed the weapon uneasily.

"Who are you?" he asked. The place, the experience were getting to be too much for his shaken nerves.

"That don't matter," Mary raised her deep eyes, they were burning with superstitious intentness; "but I have a message for you—you best heed it. We don't stand for strangers hanging around here. See there!" Mary pointed to The Rock—Thornton's excited fancy caught the wavering outlines of The Ship.

"All that's wise—goes with that." Mary turned away. "You best heed!" she muttered as Jed had, and slunk off.

Thornton shivered. He had not eaten for many hours; he was weary and beaten.

"My God!" he muttered as he mounted the horse; "what—a conspiracy! What a hole to get away from. She thinks I'm looking for stills. Stills!" he gave a weak laugh.

Joan stood until she heard the sound of the horse's hoofs on the road, then she turned to the freshly brushed but empty hearth and knelt, shivering.

"Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire." Her eyes clung to the words as if they were living flames. She was not conscious of thought, but she seemed to know that she had only seen the fire before but that now she was to feel it. A glow was stirring within her—a bright, flaming thing that lighted her way, on before—the long, long splendid way on which responsibility rested like a halo.

She held within her soul all that had gone into her making—she belonged, in a great and demanding significance, to—Doris and Doris's people. Doris's and her own! Her own! She must prove herself—behind the shield; she must make the real her ideal. She must not be afraid. Fear was the only thing that mattered.

Her whole life had been but an outline up to now; she must fill it in! She must not be afraid to set sail.

Who had said that to her?

"Set sail. Bids—you set sail!"

So engrossed was Joan in the flooding tide of thought, so entirely was she abandoning herself to it, that it was only when she heard Doris speak that she turned.

"Joan, we've brought Clive! We met him on the way."

Joan did not rise. With hands clasped in her lap she faced the little group in the doorway.

Her eyes were filled with the golden light of day—she waited; all her life, she knew, she had been preparing for this moment. She saw Cameron's start of surprise; his wonder and doubt. Then she saw him gathering strength as for the last lap of a hard race.

"So I have found you!" he said, and pushing past Martin and Doris he came across the room with outstretched hands.

Something was calling in the tone which words could not convey, and Joan could not answer. It was like hearing a voice where before there had been but echoes.

"I always knew that I would find you!"

Cameron had reached the girl on the floor; he bent and drew her to her feet. His eyes were laughing; he saw her effort to answer him; her seeking to—understand what he had already learned.

"It's—all right now," he comforted.

"Yes—of course!"

How futile were the words, but they opened the way for truth to flood in.

Joan, her hands still in Cameron's, her eyes clinging to his, murmured again, "Yes; of course—now!"

Then she turned to the two silent, amazed people in the doorway and, by some magic, they were making her realize that she was facing her Big Chance. Hers!

She must not be afraid. Fear was the only thing that could harm.

Where they had been weak, she must be strong; where they had been blinded, she must—see!

Why, that was what her life and Cameron's meant, and the two, standing apart, together—but alone—had made it possible.

She, like Nancy, must "carry on," not mistakenly, not held on leash, but with a freedom born of choice and understanding; of failures, and the learning of the true from the false.

To her—and again Joan turned to Cameron—and to him, was given the glorious opportunity of making the real, ideal.

It was then that Joan threw her head back and laughed that laugh of hers that meant but one thing: An acceptance of life; a faith in its freedom; a conviction that it could be lived gladly and without fear.

THE END

* * * * *

BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.

No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader was Seventeen.

PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.

This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, exquisite work.

PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.

Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written.

THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.

Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success.

THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece.

A story of love and politics,—more especially a picture of a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love interest.

THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence P. Underwood.

The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.

Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street.

The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story of sisterly devotion and sacrifice.

POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. Frontispiece by George Gibbs.

A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and "The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures.

JOSSELYN'S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.

The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness and love.

MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers.

The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions.

THE HEART OF RACHAEL. Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.

An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second marriage.

THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.

A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure and lonely, for the happiness of life.

SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.

Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer determination to the better things for which her soul hungered?

MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every girl's life, and some dreams which came true.

Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER

A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, believing she had lost her lover, enters a convent. He returns, and interesting developments follow.

THE UPAS TREE

A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful author and his wife.

THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE

The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages vanished into insignificance before the convincing demonstration of abiding love.

THE ROSARY

The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty above all else in the world, but who, when blinded through an accident, gains life's greatest happiness. A rare story of the great passion of two real people superbly capable of love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward.

THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE

The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the death of a husband who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is ignorant of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When he learns her real identity a situation of singular power is developed.

THE BROKEN HALO

The story of a young man whose religious belief was shattered in childhood and restored to him by the little white lady, many years older than himself, to whom he is passionately devoted.

THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR

The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are reunited after experiences that soften and purify.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE LAMP IN THE DESERT

The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through all sorts of tribulations to final happiness.

GREATHEART

The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.

THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE

A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance."

THE SWINDLER

The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.

THE TIDAL WAVE

Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.

THE SAFETY CURTAIN

A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other long stories of equal interest.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

JUST DAVID

The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left.

THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING

A compelling romance of love and marriage.

OH, MONEY! MONEY!

Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment.

SIX STAR RANCH

A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star Ranch.

DAWN

The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the service of blind soldiers.

ACROSS THE YEARS

Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of the best writing Mrs. Porter has done.

THE TANGLED THREADS

In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all her other books.

THE TIE THAT BINDS

Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for warm and vivid character drawing.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers.

Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and onward.

LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.

This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery.

THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.

"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.

FRECKLES. Illustrated.

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.

AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors.

The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.

THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated.

A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and humor.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation adjusted to be consistent with contemporary standards.

Page 100, "genuis" changed to "genius" (the girl had genius).

Page 173, "undestand" changed to "understand" (make you understand).

Page 176, "Massachusett" changed to "Massachusetts" (Massachusetts coast.)

Page 201, "pleassure" changed to "pleasure" (business, pleasure, art).

Page 261, "hopefuly" changed to "hopefully" (hopefully sent).

Page 75, "diguise" changed to "disguise" (cannot disguise herself).

Page 111, "pallette" changed to "palette" (tossed her palette aside).

Page 128, "virture" changed to "virtue" (unbending virtue).

Page 128, "assinine" changed to "asinine" (his asinine conceit).

Page 228, "browzing" changed to "browsing" (browsing along).

Page 281, "volcanos" changed to "volcanoes" (to play on volcanoes).

THE END