Part 44 (1/2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVII

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

In reality Destiny, or whatever we choose to call that power which controls things that _must be_, had the woman completely in its grip.

Whatever she was to do would be done without any actual forethought or preparation; she would realize that afterward as we all do when we have pa.s.sed through a crisis and have done better, perhaps, than our poor, una.s.sisted thought might have accomplished for us.

Joyce was on the wheel, and the wheel was going at a tremendous speed.

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

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

She was no longer the beautiful woman in the golden dress; nor he the man of the illumined face and pleading arms. No; she was old Jared's wild little daughter; Jude Lauzoon's brutalized and dishonoured wife.

Nothing, nothing could do away with those awful facts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, if she were as n.o.ble as Gaston had striven to make her, there was but one thing to do. Go to that woman up at the bungalow, tell her all that she did _not_ know. All about the heavy penalty weakness had paid for the crime committed by another. Tell of the splendid expiation and the hard-won victory, and then--let go her hold and, in Love's supreme renunciation, prove her worthiness to what G.o.d withheld.

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

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

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

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