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."