It was hard for Drew to readjust his ideas and fit this beautiful woman into the guise of the Magdalene of his late thoughts.

Vaguely he saw that whatever she had undergone, she had brought from her experiences new beauty; a new force, and a power to guard her possessions with marvellous calm. She was being made as she went along in life. Her spiritual and mental architecture, so to speak, could not be properly estimated until all was finished. This conclusion chilled Drew's enthusiasm. He would have felt kinder had she been less sure of herself.

"You are looking—well, Mrs. Lauzoon." Drew felt the awkwardness of the situation growing.

"Please, Mr. Drew, I'm just Joyce again. Perhaps you have not heard?" Her great eyes were still smiling that contented, peaceful smile.

"I've heard. Need we talk of it, Joyce?"

"Unless you're too weak, we must; now or at some other time. You see I have been waiting to talk to you. I've been saying over and over, 'He'll understand. He'll make me sure that I've done right.'"

Drew, for the life of him, could not repress a feeling of repulsion. Joyce noticed this, and leaned back, folding her hands in her lap.

Drew saw that her hands were white and smooth. Then she gathered her heavy, red cloak around her, and hid those silent marks of her new refinement.

"They call me"—the old, half-childish smile came to the face looking full at Drew—"the worst woman in town. At least, they call me that when they think I won't hear. You know they were always afraid of Mr. Gaston a little. But I hear and it makes me laugh."

The listener closed his eyes for a moment. He could better steady his moral sense when that sweet beauty did not interfere with his judgment.

"You see, if I had stayed on—with Jude, and lived—that—awful life": a sudden awe stole into her voice—"then, if they had thought of me at all, they would have thought of me as—good. It would have been—good for me to have—poor, sad little children—like—like my—my baby—You've heard?" Her lips were quivering. The play of expression on her face, the varying tones of her voice unnerved Drew. He nodded to her question.

"It was such a—dreadful, little, crooked form, Mr. Drew—such—a hideous thing to hold a—a—soul. Just once, the soul smiled at me through the big, dark eyes—it wanted me to know it was a soul—then it went away."

Even while the smile trembled on the girl's lips the tears stood in her eyes.

"You see," she went on, "no one would have blamed me if I had gone on like that—the misshapen children, and soon they would have stopped having souls—and Jude's cruelty,"—again that fearsome catch in the voice—"they would have called me good—if I had stayed on—but you will understand?" She bent toward him with pleading and yearning in her face. "Oh! how I have just hungered to talk it over with you—and to feel sure! There isn't any one else in all the world, you know, to whom I could say this."

"How about Gaston?" Drew heard his own words, and they sounded brutal, but they were forced from him.

Joyce stared surprisedly.

"Why—we never talk of—of that. How could we? But I read—and Mr. Gaston has taught me to think—straight—and don't you notice how much better I talk?"

"Yes—and dress." All that was hard in Drew rose in arms. This girl was like the rest of her kind for all her wood-setting and strange beauty. The only puzzling thing in the matter was her desire to talk it out with him.

"I have lots of pretty things to wear." Joyce smoothed her heavy cloak. "He's the kindest man I ever knew. That's another reason I had for wanting to come to you. I want you to show him just how you understand. I begin to see how lonely he is—how lonely he has always been up here—there is no one quite like him—but you. But Mr. Drew, do you remember what you preached that day you—married us—Jude and me, I mean?"

"I'm afraid not—so many things have happened since." Drew tried to keep his feelings in check.

"Well, I remember every word." The glowing face again bent toward Drew. "Can't you think back? It was about what we've brought into the world, what we get here and shape into our lives, and then what we leave when we go—away. The blazed trail, you know, and clearing the way for others. Oh, it was the sort of thing that when you thought about it you didn't dare go on being careless."

"I do—recall." Her intensity was gripping Drew in spite of himself. "It was an old fancy. But it has helped me to live."

"It has made me live. I tried it fair and honest with Jude, Mr. Drew, but no one could do it with him. The trail got choked with—awful things—and I only had strength enough to run away, after one year. If I had stayed—I—I would have rotted as I stood." She breathed thick and fast. Her old life, even in memory, smothered her. Drew caught a slight impression of what it must have been for this strange-natured woman. He began to think she was not yet awake, and the thought made him kinder in his estimate of her.

"But," he said gently, "was there no other way out of your difficulty?"

She looked pityingly at him.

"I didn't go to Mr. Gaston to—to stay," she whispered: "there was a reason for my going—a reason about Jude—then things happened that I guess were meant to happen. There was no other way out for me—but I had not thought that far. I guess if God ever took care of any one, he took care of me that night."

This utterly pagan outlook on the proprieties positively stirred Drew to unholy mirth. But it did something else—it made him realize that the girl before him was quite outside the reach of any of his preconceived ideas. He could afford to sit down upon her plane and feel no moral indignation. Perhaps, after all, she had brought his work to him when she came herself.

"You see, after Jude and Mr. Tate and Jock Filmer found me there late at night—there was nothing else for me to do. Jude would have killed me—if I had gone away alone—he was—awful. Besides, where could I have gone?"

"Gaston should have acted for you. He knew what he was doing to you."

The righteous indignation confused the girl.

"Why, he did act for me." The fire sprang to the wondering eyes. "He is the best man on earth. There are more ways of being good than one. The people here can't see that—but surely you can. Mr. Gaston made my life safe and clean. I could grow better every day. Why, look at me." She flung her arms wide as if by the gesture she laid bare her new life.

"He has taught me until I can see and think, wide and sure. He is always gentle—and he never lets me work until—until I'm too tired to want to live.

"Isn't it being good when you are growing into the thing God meant you to be? Ought you not to take any way God offers to reach that kind of life?" Joyce flung the questions out fiercely. She was perplexed by Drew's attitude. If he were as much like Gaston as she had believed, why did he look and act as he was doing?

"If—if you have, and if you are, all that you say, why do you question me so?" Drew asked. He was feeling his way blindly through this new moral, or unmoral, thicket.

"Because sometimes a queer thought comes to me. I know it is because these people can not understand; but you can, and when you have told me it is all right—I shall never have the thought again."

"What is the thought, Joyce?"

"You see," she almost touched him now in her intensity, "I do not know anything about Mr. Gaston—really. About what he was, what his life was before he came here. I would not hurt him for anything God could give to me—and sometimes I have wondered if—if in that life that was; the life that might come again to him, you know,—for for he is so different from any one here—I wonder if what he has done for me, could hurt him? Could anything that is so heavenly good for me—hurt him?—tell me, tell me!"

And now Drew dropped his eyes and sent a swift prayer to God for forgiveness.

He had thought her without conscience, without soul. He felt himself in a dim valley, and he hardly dared to raise his eyes to her.

"I am perfectly happy." The words quivered to him, and belied themselves. "And he says he—is—but would he be if he were back there—where he came from? In my getting of my life, am I taking from his?"

"Good God!"

"You—you do not understand, either?"

"Yes; I do, Joyce—I understand. I understand."

"Am I hurting him?"

"He must answer that, Joyce, no one else can. He must face that some day, and also whether he is hurting you or not. We cannot any of us choose a little sunny spot in life for ourselves and shut out the past and future by a high wall. The present faces both ways, Joyce, and light is let in from all sides. Light and blackest gloom, God help us!

"What Gaston's other life was—he alone knows—he ought to tell you if he hopes to help you really. If he's the good man he seems to you, Joyce, he will tell you, and give you a chance to play the game." Suddenly an inspiration came to Drew. "Tell him," he said slowly, "that I have friends coming here—friends who will probably build summer homes and introduce a new life. It's none of my business, perhaps, but you've come to me for help—and as God shows me, I must help you. Gaston has no right to injure your future by playing a game with you that you in no wise understand. It isn't fair—and he knows it, if he stops to think. Perhaps there was no way for him to help you that night, but the way he took. Perhaps he nobly did the only thing he could—I hope to God this is true; but there are other ways now, Joyce—he must know and give you a choice."

"I—I—do not see—what you mean?" A frightened look spread over Joyce's face, and she shivered even in the full glow of the autumn sunlight. "I feel—you make me feel—as if I had been—as if I am—shut in a little room, with the doors and windows about to be opened. What is coming in, Mr. Drew? What am I going to see? You—you frighten me. I cannot—I will not believe—anything dreadful could happen to him or me—when I am so happy and safe."

The excitement was wearing upon Drew frightfully. His ghastly face appealed suddenly to Joyce as she looked at him through her own growing doubt.

"I'm going," she said, starting up; "I've made you worse. What can I do?"

Drew smiled wanly and held out a trembling hand.

"Come again," he whispered. "It's all right, I'm much better—than when you came."

And so he was, spiritually, for he had retained his belief in God's goodness, somehow. Just why, he could not have told, but had the girl been what he had, for a moment, believed, it would all have seemed so uselessly hopeless and crude.

From the strange confession he had obtained but a blurred impression, but that impression saved his faith in Joyce, at least. She was not a bad, ignoble woman. Whatever she had done, had been done from the best that was in her, and if Gaston had accepted her sacrifice he had, in some way, managed to keep himself noble in her sight.

It was a baffling thing all around. A thing that he must approach from a new standpoint; the one, the only comfort was, the girl's own evolution. It was not possible Drew thought, that all was evil which had produced what he had just seen.

Gaston often took a trip to Hillcrest, remaining several days, at times, and Joyce never questioned. Gradually she had accepted the place in Gaston's life that he had allotted her without expectation or regret. To live in the light and joy of his presence had become enough—almost enough. She studied, and sought to be what he desired. She was, after the very first, genuinely happy and full of quaint sweetness. As the black interval of her life faded, she turned with grateful appreciation to the present and played the part expected of her in an amazing manner.

Sometimes that disturbing doubt, hardly strong enough to be classified, made her pause, wide-eyed and still, but it fled before Gaston's laugh and jest.

With Drew's coming she grasped the subtle restlessness and comforted herself with the thought that he who understood so much, he, who was, in kind, like Gaston, he would clear away the elusive doubt forever.

She had never forgotten that it was Drew who had first set her feet on the upward path; he, above all others, would be glad of her better life, and sympathize with her happiness.

When she pondered upon Gaston's possible past, she felt guilty. What he did not entrust to her, she had no right to consider—so she tried to push the thought away. She was glad of so good an excuse for putting a fretting thing aside. But it would not remain hidden. During Gaston's absences it reared its hated head—with his return it slunk into shadow.

Taking advantage of one of Gaston's brief visits from home, Joyce had gone to Drew, timing her call when she knew his womenkind were away. She had an instinctive aversion to her own sex. She had thought it was contempt for St. Angé womanhood; she did not speculate about these others.

Her talk with the young minister, instead of clearing her sky of the tiny cloud, had resulted in a general atmosphere of doubts and shapeless fears that doomed her days to unhappiness, and her lonely nights to actual misery.

Things were not right. That was the overpowering conviction that grew apace. If she knew all—all what? Well, if she insisted upon knowing all—what would happen?

She caught her breath sharply, and frantically turned to bodily toil in order to down the spectre which now confronted her with brazen insistence. Things must go on as before. Ralph Drew was nothing but a boy—what were his opinions compared to Gaston's? Gaston could do no wrong. She was content to abide by his decree.

She sang, and turned from one task to another with determined haste. At one moment she vowed the subject should never be thought of again; the next, she promised herself that she would put the whole matter before Gaston as soon as he returned, and, by so doing, prove the unimportance of the thing. But whichever way she looked at it, she hourly grew to dread Gaston's return. Life was never going to be the same. Something was going to happen!

Oh, she had often had these premonitions before. Gaston laughed at them, and called her funny names when she voiced them to him.

Three days and nights dragged on, after that visit to Drew, before Gaston came back.

The house had been cleaned and recleaned until it shone. The fire was kept brilliant, and Joyce donned, in turn, every pretty bit of adornment that she owned. She decked the pictures with ground-pine, and, in the act of preparing the dishes for supper that Gaston liked best, he found her.

"Hello, little girl," he called cheerily; "it look like Christmas. It's lucky I have some presents in my pack. I believe you fixed up to catch me, and make me feel like a tight-wad. But I'm one to the good. Don't peek. After supper we'll have a lark. Have you a kiss by way of welcome?"

Joyce turned from the lamp she was lighting, and put both her hands on his shoulders.

"Oh, but it's good to have you back!" she said, and raised her lips to his.

This fond response to him was the greatest recompense the change in their lives had brought to Gaston. It warmed the lonely places of his heart.

It was a jovial meal that followed. Gaston was hungry, the food was excellent, and Joyce glowed and beamed in the atmosphere of regained trust.

It was, though, a fleeting peace. When the dishes were removed, Gaston noticed how tired she looked.

"Happy?" he asked, with a laugh.

"Perfectly." Joyce was filling his pipe.

"Perfectly nothing!" he exclaimed, drawing her down to the arm of his chair. "Now own up, my lady, what have you been doing?"

Gaston expected a rehearsal of daily tasks, more energetically performed, perhaps, than was necessary.

"I went to see Mr. Drew." The smile fled from Gaston's face. So it was not housework!

"How is the young D. D.?"

"He looks very ill, but they say he is getting better."

"Did you have a pleasant call?"

Gaston was unreasonably annoyed, but he was curious also.

Joyce dropped her eyes. In a subtle way Gaston felt a change in her. She was never anything but direct and truthful with him, her attitude was now, therefore, more significant. He had beaten his life, his personal life, into a monotonous round outlined on that first night when Joyce had been thrust into his care. He had grown to think that emotions were dead and done with; this sudden realization that the first touch from the outer world could disturb his calm, irritated him beyond measure.

"Mr. Drew was very—kind," Joyce's voice fell dully upon Gaston's impatience; "he's coming—to see us!"

"The devil he is!" The outburst seemed so childish that Gaston laughed, and his gloom passed.

By persistent practice he had felled every circumstance to a dead level—he would raze this new element, too, to the ground, and things would assume the old placidity.

"We'll welcome him when he comes, Joyce. I'm a selfish brute and don't want to be disturbed; but of course any one who cares to come will be welcome."

She shot a swift glance at him, then her eyes fell.

Gaston stared at her, and his face flushed. It had not been easy during the past year to keep the man in him under control, but he had begun to think, lately, the victory was assured. So confident was he of himself, that he had planned a final test in order to make sure the future held no danger for him—and her!

He sometimes wondered, if she were placed in different environment, surrounded by luxuries and admiration, how she would appear; and how she would affect him. In a way he had educated her and refined her. He had grown used to her and taken her for granted, but there were moments when she perplexed him.

His visit to Hillcrest was connected with his little plan to test, in a fashion, this woman he had helped to form.

Her announcement about Drew had diverted his thought, but he returned now to his own interests. Again he wondered if, after all he had done for her, she could rise above Jude and St. Angé to a degree that might touch him—that part of him that he hoped he had conquered forever.

If she could—then—but he would not anticipate. Drew's advent had focussed his desire to put himself, and her, to the test. Joyce had precipitated matters, that was all.

"Joyce!"

She was bending to place a log upon the fire.

"None of that! When I'm at home, the big logs are for me."

She laughed brightly. To be so guarded and cared for never ceased to be exciting.

"And now for my surprise! It's a corker this time, Joyce."

Gaston walked to the lean-to room and brought out two boxes.

"Take them to your room, and put them on," he said.

There were always surprises when Gaston returned from Hillcrest. From out the Somewhere, somehow there drifted marvellous things—books, pictures, dresses, dainty slippers and home furnishings. Things that St. Angé gaped silently upon. Joyce never asked questions. Like a child she shielded this fairy-like mystery from her own curiosity. She was happier not to know.

But to-night the boxes seemed heavy. Not from what they held, but from the weight of her unrest, which was returning with added force.

She obeyed, however, with that quivering smile still upon her lips. Almost staggering under the load, she turned and entered the chamber that had once been Gaston's. It was a woman's room now in every sense. Gone were the rough furniture, the pipes and books. In their places were the white bed, the low rocker, the many trifles that go to meet the endless whims of a woman's fancy and taste. It was an odd room for the shack of a backwoodsman. It had taken Joyce long to settle into it comfortably. Her brief apprenticeship in the home that Gaston had helped Jude make for her was the only preparation she had had for ease among these refinements.

Once within the shelter now, Joyce almost flung the boxes from her. It was dark and cold in the room, and the stillness soothed her. She groped her way to the window and looked out at the little mound near the pines, where all that was really her own—her very own—lay. It had always been a comfort to have the little body so near her place of safety. She had ceased to grieve when once the baby was brought away from the ruin of the former home; but to-night the small oval, under its crust of glittering snow, made her shudder. It was her own—but oh! it was cold and dead like all the rest of her hope and joy. She knew it now. Not even Gaston's coming had cleared the doubt.

She had believed herself so good and happy—and here it was made plain, horribly plain. Everything was wrong. It had always been wrong.

But she dared not shrink into her pain. She must obey, and play her part. Awkwardly she lighted her lamp; tremblingly she untied the boxes—they bore the same mystic signs and the oft-repeated words, "New York." It did not matter. New York or the New Jerusalem, one was as unreal as the other to the backwoods girl.

Oh, but here was surprise indeed!

Joyce had not, as yet, sunk so far in doubt and apprehension, but that the contents of the boxes moved her to interest and delight.

A gown of golden silk, clinging and long. The daintiest of gloves, silken hose, and satin slippers. Filmy skirts, and bewildering ruffles of cobwebby lace. What wild imagination ever conceived of such witcheries; and what power could command their materialization in the North Woods?

Joyce sank beside the boxes, gasping with delight. Then suddenly, as the shock of pleasurable surprise passed, the mockery of the gift struck her. Down went the humbled head, and the girl wept as if her heart would break.

Gaston was playing with her. She had not been keen enough to understand, but all along he had amused himself at her expense. Having had her thrust upon him by circumstances, he had accepted the situation in his good-natured way, but underneath it was as cruel as—all else in her life.

She had been an ignorant, blind fool. Never had Gaston been so daring with her. Other pretty gifts had found a place, and supplied a want, in their common life; but this—this—oh! the incongruity was cruel and—insulting.

Joyce could not analyze all this—she merely felt it. But when it had sunk to the depths of her aroused instinct, the reaction took place. Had the girl been ugly physically, or had Gaston debased her, her doom would have been fixed; but there was a—chance!

In the death throes of her false position, she retraced the steps of her life with Gaston. With a sickening shudder she recalled her mad fear that first awful night when he had shut the door upon Jude and the others. How he had made her feel, and at once, that from the high place that was his, he could afford to help her, and only the low and vile would misunderstand. It was because she was low and vile as Jude had made her that she had feared—what?

How the knowledge had stung, then stunned her! She might have known, had she remembered, from the first Gaston had always driven her back upon herself when her foolish passion for him reared its head.

No one of his own kind would ever have been led into a misunderstanding of his motives and goodness.

Then in the days that followed that first terrible night, she had abased herself and striven to fill the role Gaston prepared for her!

Later she studied and silently prayed that, in a small way, she might repay him for his divine kindness!

But with the patient effort and the marvellous results of quickened mentality, a clear space was left in the new woman for harrowing doubt. She never again sank to the thought that Gaston could love her; but she could not utterly blind herself to the fear that he might be hurting himself through others not realizing the difference between him and her. Naturally she could not go to Gaston with this doubt—it would seem an insult to him, and a shameless suggestion.

Therefore she hailed Drew's advent with mingled apprehension and relief. Had he taken for granted that all was well; had he seemed glad that Gaston had saved her from her evil fate; then she would have known that such people as Gaston and Drew would understand and think no evil. But the effect of Gaston's training and influence had sunk deep. Joyce had risen above the vile thing Jude and St. Angé had tried to make her. She was, for all the wide difference between her and Gaston, a woman! A woman beautiful and alive to the highest degree. She dared not any longer ignore that. For Gaston's sake she must face the blinding truth.

Crouching beside the boxes of finery that he had thought she could not understand, Joyce clenched her hands in an agony of consecration and renunciation. Then despair seized her, and for a wild moment she was tempted to use Gaston's own weapon against him.

Heretofore she had accepted his gifts with a child's delight—what a fool she had been! Suppose now she should—well, take what she could get from life in spite—yes, in spite of Gaston himself?

Dare she? Could she? Would she be able to do anything when she faced him, but fall at his feet, beg for mercy, and implore him to tell her what her awakened conscience demanded?

She would try.

The colour rose and fell in the lovely face. She was beautiful, and she loved him. She had never let him see how much; or how. He should see now! She would try her meanest and basest weapon—and if—if—it conquered, she would make—terms. She, poor, dependent Joyce of the backwoods. Old Jared's girl. Jude Lauzoon's discarded wife. If she won a victory, what a victory it would be!

It would prove to Drew—she rose defiantly, and snatched the finery from the boxes. Her eyes were blazing and her blood ran hotly. Before her little mirror she let the garments of her past life fall from her. She unpinned her glorious hair, and thrilled as its convincing beauty gave added power to her plans.

Slowly, carefully, with a pictured ideal in her memory, she fashioned the wonderful tresses into form. High upon her head the glistening mass was fastened, then cunningly the little curls were pulled loose, and were permitted to go free about the smooth brow and white neck.

Then with an instinct that did not play her false, she donned the marvellous garments.

She was finished at last. The new, palpitating woman. All that belonged to the old Joyce seemed to have fallen, with the discarded garments, to the floor.

She did not doubt her power now. She was not afraid. Something was going to happen—again she experienced the sensation. It had come first in this very shack, when her childhood had departed, and the woman in her had been born. A poor, dull woman, to be sure; still, a woman.

She had felt it, too, the Sunday of her marriage, when Drew had called to her conscience and spirituality, and set the chords of suffering and hope vibrating. From that hour to this she had been climbing painfully to what was about to occur.

Well, she was ready. The bewitching smile played over her face. Tiptoeing across the bedroom floor, she noiselessly unfastened the door, and silently reached Gaston's side.

He had quite forgotten her. Weary from the day's work, perplexed by later developments, with closed eyes, and hands clasped behind his head, he was lost in thought.

Joyce touched him lightly, and he looked up.

She had taken him off guard. Her bewildering beauty attacked his senses while his shield of Purpose was down.

"Good God!" he exclaimed staring at her. "You—you glorious creature!"

She laughed, and the sound thrilled the man as her beauty did. It was new, and wonderful. He staggered to his feet and reached out to her like a man blinded by a sudden glare.

She evaded his touch, and gave that wild little laugh again.

"You like it?" she asked, from across the table.

"Like it? You—are—divine!"

"Why—did—you—do it?"

"I had a mad fancy to see just how great your—beauty was."

"And—you see?"

"Heavens! I do see."

"And you think?"

"What any man would think," Gaston's excitement was rising, "who had been starved for—years—and then finds all he's hungered for—alone in the North Woods. Think?"

The breaking of a flaming log startled them, and it steadied Gaston for a moment. Joyce had herself well in hand. The victory was hers if only she could command this new power long enough.

"Please," she pleaded, "please sit down. I have something to say to you."

Gaston sank back in his chair, and Joyce sat down opposite. The table was between them, and the light of the fire and lamp flooded over the girl.

She was wonderful in that gown, and with her splendid, pale hair framing her face with its fair glory.

The shock of surprise was passing, but Gaston still looked at the girl as if he had never seen her before.

"What is it, Joyce?" he asked presently; "what has changed you so?" Then he smiled, for the question seemed crude and ill-advised.

"The dress—isn't that what you wanted?"

"I do not mean the dress—there is something else."

"So there is—but it came with the dress. Perhaps you—did not order that—well, then, it must be your part of the surprise. Don't you remember that story you read to me once—about the mantle of Elijah? You know it made the humble wearer—great. Well, these pretty things,"—she touched them lightly—"they make me—a woman. The sort of woman who must—ask questions—and get answers—true answers."

"Why, don't you trust—me?"

The pained question was wrung from Gaston's lips. The steady look from the big eyes went strangely to his heart.

"I—do—not know—you—as you—are now," she said firmly.

"It is not I who am changed, Joyce, it is you. Everything is just the same except that I see you are more—wonderful than I dreamed."

"Nothing is going to be the same again. I knew it while Mr. Drew was talking the other day—I have thought it all out since."

"Curse him!" Gaston broke in; "what did he say? Why did you go to him Joyce? How could you?"

There was pain in the words—pain and a dumb fear.

"It only happened to be Mr. Drew. Some one would have made me know in time."

"Joyce;" he was actually pleading with her! The knowledge burnt into the quickening soul. "Joyce, what did you trust in me, before you went to Drew?"

"Your goodness—your—unselfishness. I knew the goodness—I have only begun to see the—unselfishness."

"My unselfishness? Good heavens!" In spite of the strangeness of it all, Gaston laughed. Then an impatience stifled him. A brute instinct drove him on. Her beauty had captured his senses, and he meant to tear down the pitiful wall he had upbuilded between her and him, and force her to see the inevitable.

He had wondered if she could stir him—well he knew now. What idiots they had both been!

He was through with the Past forever. The Past that had held him to a false ideal. There should be no more imbecile philosophy in the North Woods as far as he and she were concerned.

"See here," he began, and his voice was almost hard; "don't you know when I shut you away from what you knew as danger—Jude and all the rest of the hell that went with him—I shut you away from what people—people like Drew and his set—know as mercy?"

Joyce's eyes widened, but she did not speak. Gaston rushed on—he wanted the scene over. She was too heavenly beautiful sitting there, he must bring her closer.

"They would call you—well, they wouldn't call you a good woman. They are very particular about their women. In a way, you must have known this, Joyce. You've played the game like a thoroughbred, and when one considers how you've played it, the wonder grows—but they'd never believe that—even if we told them. Great heavens! how could they, if they saw you?

"That there was no other way for me to help you then, that you had no other shelter in God's world would not alter the case at all. And I've been a fool, Joyce, a maudlin fool—all along!"

The woman opposite was looking at him through tears, but the sweet mouth was quivering pitifully.

"Joyce"; the tone caused the tear-dimmed eyes to close; "let us face the music—and—dance along to the tune."

Gaston leaned toward her and when she dared to look at him she saw that the future was in her hands!

"You—you thought I knew this all along?"

"In a way—yes!"

Joyce's eyes dropped and a flush rose to her pale, still face.

"Then those—those people—the good people, what would they have thought about you?"

"Oh! some would have thought me a—damned scoundrel; and they would have been right had I ever intended to leave you to their mercy. Others—well, others—"

"Please tell me, you see I want to understand everything and that world is not mine—you know."

"The others,"—and now Gaston dropped his own eyes—"the others would have forgotten all about it—had I chosen to go back!"

"But they—would not have forgotten about me?"

"No. That is their imbecile code."

"And—and men know that and yet—" Her eyes widened in a dumb terror—"why, they are worse than—the people of St. Angé!"

Suddenly Gaston flung his head back and looked full at the beautiful face. It was radiant, but the eyes were overflowing. It seemed to him as if she, coming out from her shadows, were bringing all wronged womanhood with her.

"You know Joyce, you must have known no matter what else you thought, and you must know now, I never meant to leave you to their—mercy?"

He knew that he was speaking truth to her and it gave him courage.

"Yes; yes!" she cried. "I know that above all and everything."

Joyce saw that she was gaining power. She knew that, marvellous as it seemed, she was to shape their future lives. But she must have the sky clear. Gaston, she felt, recognized this as well as she. He expected but one outcome; he saw her love, and was willing to show his own, now that the barriers were down.

"We need ask nothing!" he said softly; "and there are deeper woods to the north, dear."

"Can you—will you—tell me about yourself before—you came here?"

The question was asked simply and it was proof, if any were needed, that the past false position was utterly annihilated.

Gaston accepted the changed conditions with no sense of surprise. He acknowledged her right to all that she desired.

"When I said, a time back"; he began slowly; "that they—those good people we were talking about—would let me into their world if I—left you"; his fingers closed firmer over her hands; "I did not tell you that there is another reason why they would not let me in. They could overlook some things—but not others. Suppose I should tell you that I had done a wrong that was worse, in their eyes, than almost anything else?"

"I would not believe it!"

"But that is God's truth."

She grew a little paler, but she did not withdraw her hands.

With smarting recollection Gaston remembered how, back there in the old life, two small hands had slipped from his at a like confession.

"I've been a weak fellow from the start, Joyce. I haven't even had the courage to do a big, bad thing for myself. I've let them I loved, use me. I've lost my idea of right in my depraved craving for appreciation. That sort of sin is the worst kind. It damns one's self and makes the one you've tried to serve, hate you."

He saw that she was trying to follow him, but could not clearly, so he dropped all but brutal facts.

"When I stepped off the train at St. Angé, a few years back, I took the name of Gaston, because I dared not speak my own name, and I didn't like to go by the number that I had been known by for—five years."

"Number?" she whispered, and her frightened eyes glanced about. She was not afraid of him, but for him. Gaston saw that.

"Never fear," he reassured her; "it was all worked out. I paid that debt, but I wanted to forget the transaction. I thought I could, up here—but I reckoned without you!"

"Go on," she said hoarsely. The clock struck eleven, the logs fell apart—she was in a hurry.

"You know there is an odd little couplet that used to please me when I was—paying up. It goes like this:

Two men looked out of the prison bars,
The one saw mud, the other, the stars.

"There were a lot of us who saw stars, for all the belief to the contrary; and even the mud-seers had their moments of star-vision—behind the prison bars.

"Birthdays and Christmases played the deuce with them." Gaston was off the trail now that he dared voice the memories of the past. They had so long haunted him. They might pass if he could tell them to another.

"Go on," Joyce said, impatiently glancing at the clock as if her time were short. "Please go on. It doesn't matter about that. What was before, and—and what must come, now?"

"It does matter," Gaston came back. "It was that determination of mine not to be finished by that phase of my life, that left strength in me to be halfway decent since. I only meant to regain my health up here. I meant to go back to the life I had deserted and make good before them all—but something happened."

"Yes." Gaston's face had clouded, and Joyce had to recall him.

"You see it was this way. There were a lot of people—but only four mattered. My mother, my brother, the girl and her father."

The hands under Gaston's slipped away, but he did not notice.

"My mother had a heart trouble, she could not bear much—and she always loved my brother best. He had the look and way with him that made it easy for her to prefer him. I believed the—girl cared most for me—that was what kept things going all right for a time—her father liked me best, I knew.

"I had a position of trust, the control of much money, and my head got turned, I suppose—for I felt sure of everything; myself included. Then things happened all of a sudden.

"My brother found that the girl cared for me, not him; it broke him up, and that brought on an attack of sickness for my mother. She never could bear to see him suffer. My own happiness was twisted out of shape by what I saw was to be the result of my gain over his loss.

"One night he came to me and told me that his investments had gone wrong; our mother's fortune along with the rest. A certain sum of money, right then, would tide over the critical situation.

"There was no chance but that all would come out right. He had private information that a few days would change the current. He would come out to the good—if only—"

"And you?" Joyce held him with her wide, terrified stare.

"Oh, yes! I didn't think there was any danger, and it seemed a chance to help when everything was about to come clattering around our ears. I helped. Good God, I helped!"

Gaston dropped his head on his folded arms.

"What happened when they all knew? When you explained—couldn't they help you?" Gaston flung his head back and looked at her.

"But they didn't find out. At least, they found out that I took the money—there wasn't anything else to tell. That damnable fact was enough, wasn't it? No amount of whimpering as to why I'd done it would have helped."

"But your brother?"

"He tried to get me to go away. He said in a few days all would be right. He could then save everything. I could return and repay—and—well! I wasn't made that way. I stayed."

"And—the girl?"

"She asked me if I had done it—she would believe no one else. I said yes; and that ended it. Her father tried to get me to explain—he was the Judge who was to have tried me—I refused and he begged to be released from sentencing me—that's all he could do for either of us."

"And—your—mother?" A sob rose in Joyce's throat.

"I think, even in her misery, she thanked God, since it had to be, that it was not my brother."

The room was growing cold. Joyce shivered.

"And then?" she faltered.

"Oh! then—" Gaston's face twitched, and his voice was bitter, "then came the star-gazing through the bars—and all the rest, until I came up here. Only one stuck to me through thick and thin."

"Your brother?" Joyce interrupted.

"My brother? No! Just a plain friend. I told him I did not want to hear a thing while I was shut away. I knew it would hold me back from getting what I could out of the experience. It's like hell to have the outside troubles and joys brought to you while you are bound hand and foot. I saw enough of that—it did more to keep men in the mud than anything else. I just kept that space of my life clear for expiation. When the gates opened for me one day—my friend was there with all the news in a budget.

"You see the lash that had cut deepest when I went away was something my mother said; 'You've broken the hearts of them who loved and trusted you.'

"Nothing had mattered so much as those words—and out of the disgrace, the loneliness, the misery and deadly labour, I had worked out a plan to make up to them for the wrong I had done. It was going to be about the biggest job a fellow ever undertook; but, do you know, I had hoped that I could do it?

"Well, my friend's words drove me back upon myself. There was nothing for me to do."

"Why?"

"The hearts were all mended—after a fashion, without my aid."

"Your mother?"

"She had died soon after I went away."

"And your—brother—he surely—"

"Oh! he had gone booming ahead like a rocket. The tide turned a bit too late for me—but it carried him to a safe harbour. In a generous and highly moral way he stood ready to repay me—but conditions had changed; I must accept certain terms."

"The—the—girl?"

"She'd married my brother. She it was who changed the conditions, you see. It had been a noble sacrifice for her to marry into such a family—so, of course, due consideration must be shown her. Would I live abroad on an ample allowance?"

Joyce flinched before the tone. Gaston stood up and flung his arms out. "No! by God, I would not live abroad. I chose my own place of hiding. He paid, though—I saw to that—he named no allowance, it was I; but he paid and paid and paid all that I thought he should. He bought me off at my price—not his. I left all in the hands of the only friend I had on earth—I never wanted to hear of the others again until I was ready to go back—and I haven't. I wanted time to think out my way. I wanted strength to go back, take my name and fortune, ask nothing of the world—but a chance to defy it. I got as far as that—" He dropped back into the chair and bowed his head.

The hands of the clock were past midnight, the fire was nothing but glowing embers; a chill was creeping through the room. Presently Gaston was aware of a nearness—not merely bodily, but spiritually. He looked up. He had forgotten Joyce and his thought of comfort in knowing that she would stand by him. To see her close now, to gaze up into her glorious face was like an awakening from a hideous dream to a safe reality.

"You got as far as that," she said in the saddest, softest tone that a woman's voice ever held; "and then I came into your life. Oh! how hard you tried to set me aside with Jude—but again and again I returned to—hold you back."

"Why, Joyce, what is the matter?"

A paralyzing fear drove anguish before it. Gaston strove to recall passion, but that, too, had deserted. He and Joyce were standing in a barren place alone—nothing behind, nothing before!

"Can't you see what is the matter?"

The coquetry had left the girl, she stood fair, cold and passive like some wonderful goddess.

"Don't you think I see it all now?

"When I came out of that room I was a—bad woman! You were mistaken, I never understood before—about us!

"You see when—when I came to you that night—after Jude—" she struggled with her trembling—"I did not know such men as you—lived. I was what Jude and St. Angé had made me. I was afraid of you—but," she bent over him in divine pity pressing her wet cheek to his bowed head; "but I grew to know! You were far, far above me, I soon saw how far. You never thought about it, but it made it safe for you to help me. I can see it all so plain now.

"Then the evil that was in me, the evil that some might have made so vile, slipped away. I tried hard to be what you wanted me to be for my own sake. You did not think of the past and I tried to forget it, too; and so we came along to this night.

"In that room"—she looked quiveringly at the closed door—"for a moment, I misunderstood again. I thought you were trifling with me. I think I felt for the first time that perhaps I was not what I had been—when I came out of the old life! I wanted to make sure, and I stooped to the meanest way."

Gaston drew her close. Vaguely he feared that she was slipping farther and farther from him for all her sweetness and nearness.

"Joyce!" he cried wildly. "You are not going to desert me—now?"

She dropped beside him and clasped her hands over his knee. There was no need of reserve, she knew that better than he.

"Can you not see what sort of man you are?" she asked fiercely; while the tears fell thick and fast.

"Oh! I love you many, many ways. I can tell you this now and you must not stop me. I love you for them who left you alone to suffer. I love you just for myself, and I love you as I would have loved my poor baby had God let me keep him. And that is the best way of all, for it holds all other loves.

"Oh, you must see! You shall see! The men out in your world—could any of them have done what you have done—for me? Even Mr. Drew could not understand. Even he thought you must have harmed me—he felt sorry for me! And knowing what I know, do you, could any of those others, think I would let you harm—yourself?

"You have made me a stronger woman than even you tried to make me, and I thank God for that—for you need me so very, very much!"

The deep sobs choked her, and she buried her head against his arm. Out of a desolation her words were creating, Gaston spoke desperately.

"I do need you, and by heaven, I mean to have you!"

"You're right. I did not know what you meant to me; I know now, and since Fate has played us false, we'll—we'll turn our backs on her."

"Joyce, are you willing to—trust me?"

Almost roughly he raised her face and forced her to look at him.

"I—trust you! You could never be anything but good and noble. I know that. You never have been—but, there are going to be other days and nights—just plain days and long black nights—and—I think we have almost forgotten—but there is always—Jude!"

Then like a bewildering flash the words lightened the dark place of Gaston's character.

This woman whom—he saw the fearful truth—this woman whom he had helped to form, had outgrown him and left him far behind!

Now that she understood; now that her womanhood could stand alone, she rose pure and strong above his passion and the thing he called love. She only thought he had forgotten, when God knew he did not even care for the rough fellow who had all but strangled the life out of her.

"Besides"—he heard her as from a distance—"besides, you must go back!"

"Go back—good God! to what?"

"To all that you had to go back to—when you turned to help me!"

Then Gaston bent and raised the shrinking woman beside him. Face to face they stood in the cold, still room. "Joyce," he said thickly, "what I am going to say—you may never be able to forgive—but I must say it.

"It is quite true, I gave no thought to what I was doing when I shielded you from Jude. St. Angé did not matter; there seemed no other way—and I never considered others coming to complicate things.

"I was miserable and lonely; but I felt sure of myself and in helping you I found an interest in life. Lately, almost unconsciously, I've felt the change in you—the new meaning. I wanted to make sure and then be guided, since others had entered this—this fool's paradise of mine. You are very beautiful—the most beautiful woman, I think, that I have ever seen—and I know now that you are—the best!

"Joyce—your beauty crazed me, and I had not forgotten Jude; I did not care!"

"Stop!" The little cold hand was pressed against his lips, "you shall not! It was I who tempted you—you would have remembered—everything. It is you who must forgive me—I am going—now!"

The slow, pitiful words fell lingeringly.

"Going—where can you go?" Gaston stared dumbly at her.

"I think Mr. Drew will help me. I am going to tell him everything—and he will—find a way."

"You shall not!" Gaston drew her to his breast. The primitive rose within him.

"There is another way. The only way. Drew shall not meddle in my affairs—nor yours. You will stay right here in your home until I return. I'm going to Filmer; he's the only one we need, he'll act for us both."

"But—what then?" Joyce felt her heart stand still.

"Then? why I'm going to find Jude. I'm going to buy him off—if necessary. He shall free you—and then—then!"

Gaston held the pale face off from him and searched the wide, startled eyes.

"And then?" The words fell into a question.

"But how"—Joyce panted; "how could I feel sure this great thing you plan is not another—unselfish act? Suppose, oh! suppose—she, that—that other girl—should come back—what then?"

"Hear me, Joyce. There is never going to be any one else. We are going back together—into that other life. Why, the possibility almost blinds me.

"They shall see what I've brought out of my experience. We'll make a place for ourselves and redeem the past. They shall seek us, my darling, and they shall see at last that I am master of my life!"

His enthusiasm and exaltation carried Joyce along with him.

"Dare I trust—not you—but myself?" she whispered. "After everything is said—I am—what I am!"

"Yes—you are what you are!" Gaston pressed his lips against her trembling mouth. "And now, good-bye!" he released her, and led her toward her door. "I must make a few preparations—then get to Filmer. It's all very wonderful, but it is more true than wonderful. Until I come, then—and it may take time, dear—you will remember?"

"Always—until you come—and after!"

Gaston bent again, but this time he only pressed his lips to the soft, pale hair.

When the door closed behind her; he stood for a moment dazed and bewildered. Mechanically he turned to the first task that lay at hand. He rebuilt the dead fire. It seemed symbolic, somehow, and he smiled. Then holding to the fancy that touched him, he piled on log after log.

There should be no lack of warmth and glow in the new reincarnation.

An hour later he left the house, with the needful things for his possible, long absence packed in a grip and flung across his shoulder.

He had attended to so many small comforts for Joyce—the fire, the writing out of directions, where to find money, etc.—that he had been hurried in the details of his own affairs; he had forgotten to take the key from the lock of the chest!