Jock Filmer was coming to the belief that there was a Destiny shaping his ends roughly, smooth-hew them as he had ever tried to do. Jock was pursued, there was no doubt of that. For reasons of his own he had drifted into St. AngÉ when very young. Most conveniently and soothingly memory and old habits dropped from him—they had clung tenaciously to Gaston. Jock adapted himself to circumstances and new environment with flattering promptness.

The Black Cat felt no resentment toward him after the first few months. His English became blurred with regard to grammar; the local speech was good enough for him. When Jock's Past became troublesome, as it had done from the very first, the Black Cat had consolation for its latest recruit; and, while he did not sink quite so far as some of the natives, the shortcoming was attributed more to youth than to the putting on of airifications, as Tate said.

In a boyish, off-hand way, Filmer had always regarded Gaston as a sign-board in an unexplored country. If things ever pressed too close, Filmer believed Gaston would point him to safety.

A mystic something held them together. A common interest, consciously cast into oblivion, but perfectly tangible and not to be denied, was the unspoken passport in their intercourse.

Later, during the building of Drew's bungalow and their joint sympathy for, and with, Joyce, Filmer had acknowledged Gaston, as a superior and, spiritually, regarded him as a leader in an interesting adventure.

Gaston, the night when he faced Jude and him with the pointed question, "What you going to do about it?" had fallen from Jock's high opinion, and the crash had affected him to a painful extent.

"Oh! what's the good?" he had finally concluded.

Another friendship that had been formed in the lonely woods yet remained to him, and he made the most of that. Drew's personality had stirred Jock's emotions from the start. To look forward to a renewal of the companionship was a distinct pleasure in the time when the dust of Gaston's fallen image was blinding his eyes and smarting his heart.

Drew came, sick but unconquered. All the chivalry in Filmer rose to the call. He gave his time to the young minister. Using up the little money he had earned as builder, resigning his chance to go into camp, he devoted himself to Drew day and night. He became one of the family at the bungalow and a jocose familiarity was as much a part of Jock's liking for a person, as were his tireless patience and capacity for single-minded service.

Drew's maiden aunt, prim, proper and worldly-wise, was as much Aunt Sally to Filmer as she was to her niece and nephew. Jock jollied the aristocratic lady as freely as he did Drew, toward whom he held the tolerant admiration that he had given him from the beginning. But poor Jock was not to have his own easy planning of the new situation in all directions. Constance Drew took a hand in the game, and Jock, with trailing plume, plodded on behind her.

If he could gibe and tease, she could bring him about with her cool audacity and comical dignity.

The girl's splendid physique, her athletic tendencies, her endurance and pluck, compelled Jock's masculine admiration. Her love for her brother, her tenderness and cheerfulness toward him, won his heart; but her mental make-up, her strange seriousness where her own private interests were concerned, caused the young fellow no end of amusement and delight. He had never seen any one in the least like her, and the new sensation held him captive.

Poor Jock! He was never again to walk through life without a chain and ball; but little he heeded that while he had strength and spirit to drag them.

With Drew's partial recovery the bungalow household lost its head a little. Aunt Sally's gratitude overflowed into every house in St. AngÉ. She felt as if the natives, not the pine-laded air, had been instrumental in this regained health and joyousness.

"I can never thank you enough," was her constant greeting; and so sincere was her gratitude that eventually the back doors of the squalid houses opened to her unconsciously—and of true friendship there is no greater proof in a primitive village. Sitting in their kitchens, it was easy for her to reach down into their hearts, and many a St. AngÉ woman poured her troubles into Aunt Sally's ears, and went forever after with uplifted head.

"Why, my dear," the old lady said to Ralph, after Peggy Falstar had taken her into her confidence, "these people are much like others, only they have the rough bark on. They are a great deal more vital—the bark has, somehow, kept the sap richer."

Drew laughed heartily.

"The polishing takes something away, Auntie," he replied. "The bark is hard to get through; it's tough and prickly and not always lovely, but it's the sap that counts in every case, and that's what I used to tell you and Connie. Every time I tapped these people up here, I saw and felt the rich possibilities."

"Now, you go straight to sleep," his aunt always commanded at that juncture.

She was not yet able to face the probability of a final settlement in these backwoods, but she saw with alarm that her nephew was planting his hopes deep and accepting the inevitable.

"It's all such a horrible sacrifice of his young life," she confided to Constance.

"His young life!" the girl had returned with a straight, clear look. "Why, I begin to think the only life he has, Auntie, is what St. AngÉ offers—he must take that or nothing. Oh! if only that little beast down there in New York had had the courage of a mouse, and the imagination of a mole, she might have made Ralph's life—this life—a thing to go thundering down into history! It's splendid up here! It's the sort of thing that makes your soul feel like something tangible. My!" And with that, on a certain mid-winter day, the young woman strode forth.

A long fur-lined coat protected her from the deceiving cold. The dryness of the air was misleading to a coast-bred girl. A dark red hood covered the ruddy, curly hair, and skin gloves gave warm shelter to the slim, white hands.

Down the snow-covered road Constance walked. She was tingling with the joy of her life—her life and the dear, new life given to her brother.

The pines pointed darkly to a sky so faultlessly blue that it seemed a June heirloom to a white winter.

The snow was crisp and smooth; a durable snow that must last until spring. It knew its business and what was expected of it, so it was not to be impressed by mere footsteps, or the touch of prowling beast.

Constance slid and tripped along. She sang snatches of old, remembered songs, and talked aloud for very fulness of heart and the sense of her Mission rising strong within her.

Since coming to St. AngÉ she had not, until now, had time to think of her Mission—her last Mission;—for Constance Drew was a connoisseur in Missions. But now she must waste no more time.

She patted her long pocket on the right-hand side—yes, the book and an assorted lot of pencils were there. She preferred pencils to fountain pens. The points were nicer to bite on, and she wasn't sure, in this climate, but that ink might freeze just when a soul-flight was about to land genius on a mountain-top.

There was a beautiful log halfway between the bungalow and Gaston's shack. It was a sheltered log, with a delectable hump on it where one could rest the base of one's spinal column when victory, in the form of inspiration, was about to perch.

Constance sought this log when long, ambitious thoughts possessed her. The snow had been removed, and a cushion of moss, also bare of snow, made a resting place for two small feet, warmly incased in woollen-lined "arctics."

Constance sat down and drew the red-covered book from her pocket, and placed the seven sharply-pointed pencils, side by side and near at hand.

A sound startled the girl. Her brow puckered. Even in the deep woods inspiration was not safe from intrusion.

Well, since some bothering person must take this time for appearing, Constance hoped it would be Joyce, for she wanted to see her and talk with her. Joyce did not invite intimacy. Up there alone in her shack, waiting for Gaston's return, she was grappling with matters too sacred and agonizing to permit of curious interruption. That Drew's family should overlook any little social shortcoming in her and seek to meet her on an equal footing, did not interest her in the least—she wanted to be alone, and for the most part she was.

But it was not Joyce who appeared on the road. It was Jock Filmer and he came, without invitation, to the log and put his foot on the end nearest the girl.

"Pleasant summer weather, hey?"

Constance raised her eyes from the little book in which she had been writing, and gave Jock the benefit of her honest inspection.

"If you had ever lived where winter was meted out to you in the form of frozen moisture," she said, "you'd know how to appreciate this nice, clean, undisguised cold."

"I know the other kind." Jock nodded reminiscently. "It is like being slapped in the face with a sheet wet with ice water, isn't it?"

"Ha! ha! so you haven't always lived here? I thought as much. Indeed I have a note to that effect—here." The girl tapped the red-covered book.

"No; I've travelled some," Jock confessed, "I've been to Hillcrest several times."

"I believe you are masquerading." Constance viewed him keenly. "I've written to my married sister about you all up here; I call you and that—that Mr. Gaston, the Masqueraders."

"So!" Jock smoothed his chin with his heavily gloved hand. "That sister of yours, doubtlessly, could spot us all on sight just by your description. It ain't safe. How's your aunt and the Reverend Kid?" Jock grinned amiably. The past weeks had given him time and opportunity for broadening his views of life and enjoyment.

"Ralph is fine"; the clear, gray eyes shone with the joy of the fact; "and Auntie is having the time of her life. You know she never had her lighter vein developed. Our city connection is awfully proper and cultivated. I always knew auntie was a Bohemian, and up here—she's plunging!"

"Umph! And you?"

"Oh! I'm getting—material."

"Excuse me." Jock passed his hand over his mouth. "There are times when I think you're a comicaller little cuss than your brother!"

"Mr. Filmer!"

"Oh, come down! Mr. Filmer don't go in the woods in the middle of winter. What do you want for your Christmas?"

"When you make fun of me"—the girl was trying hard not to laugh—"you anger me beyond—expression."

A guffaw greeted this. Then:

"What was you making in your little book when I came up?"

"Character sketches."

"Sho! Let's have a look. I like pictures."

"They're pen-pictures."

"All the same to me. Pencil, pen, or paint-brush."

"But you do not understand. They are word pictures. Descriptions, you know."

"Well, now you have got me! Show up, anyhow."

Constance opened the little book, and spread it out on her knee.

"I am getting material for a novel," she said impressively. "The great American novel has yet to be written. I do not want you to think me conceited, Jock, but I have had exceptional advantages—I may be the chosen one to write this—this great novel."

"Who knows?" Jock's serious gaze was a perfect disguise for his true inward state.

"Yes; who knows? You see I can speak freely to you."

"Sure thing," assented Jock. "Dumb animals can't blab, and once you turn your back on St. AngÉ I'll be a dumb beast all right!"

"My back will never be turned permanently on St. AngÉ, I think!" the girl spoke slowly. "I agree with Ralph that for the future his home will probably be here; and where Ralph is——"

"The lamb will surely come. Go on, child, and hang up your pictures." They both laughed now.

"First," Constance folded her hands over the open pages of her book, "I wonder, Jock, if you would like to hear—something of my life? It would explain this—this—great ambition of mine."

"Well," Jock drawled, "if you don't think me too young and innocent for such excitement, fire away. Histories have always had a hold on me. Most of 'em ain't true, but they tickle your imagination."

"Jock! But I'm in earnest. I have felt that I must have a confidant. Some one who will—sympathize. I'm going to have a woman friend in a day or so—but a man—one who is disinterested, so to speak, is always such a comfort to a girl when she faces a great epoch in her life."

Jock swallowed his rising mirth and his face became a blank so far as expression was concerned.

"I have had wonderful advantages," Constance began, "that is what makes me dare to hope. Advantages of wealth, society and—and a deep insight into people's innermost souls."

"Gosh!" Jock exploded; "excuse me; I always burst out that way when I'm—moved." He sat down on the end of the log, and clutched his knees in his strong arms. "Somehow you don't look like such a desperate character," he added blandly, "known sin and conquered it, and all the rest?"

Constance sniffed, but a little jocularity was not going to deter her from the luxury of confession.

"Money should only be regarded," she went on, "as a sacred trust, and a means of enriching one's life. And as for Society—that is a bore! Dances, theatres, dinners and luncheons. Chaperons tagging around after you, suggesting by their mere presence that, unless you're watched, you'll do something desperate in the wild desire to break the monotony. Well, I drank deep of that life," Constance looked dreamily over the stretch of meadow and pine-edged woods, all dazzling with a shimmer of icy snow, "before I took to——"

"Crime?" Jock suggested. "It would seem that that was the natural sequence to such a career."

"Jock Filmer—I took to philanthropy."

"As bad as that?" Jock roared with laughter.

"I only tell you this to explain my present position." Constance drew her fur-clad shoulders up. "I became a Settlement worker; but," confidently, "that was worse than Society. It was Society with another setting. 'Thanks be!' as Auntie says, I have a sense of humour and a remnant of Scotch canniness. It made me laugh—when it didn't make me ashamed—to put on a sort of livery—plain frock, you know, and go down to the Settlement in the most businesslike way to 'do' for those poor people. It cost an awful lot to run our Settlement, about two-thirds of all the money. One-third went to the poor. We had plenty of fun down there. All slummy outside and lovely things inside, you know. It was like making believe. You see," she paused impressively, "when you have a Mission like Settlement work, you don't have to have a chaperon."

"Ten to one, they're needed, though." Jock was keenly interested. "Cutting loose from familiar ties and acting up sort of detached that way, must have a queer effect upon some."

"Well, I just got enough of it. Why, one Christmas, we at the Settlement House had a tree and gifts that cost hundreds of dollars. We had a big dance. Evening dress and all the rest. Young men and women who, had they been in their own homes, would have been under some one's watchful eye, were having a jolly, good fling down there that Christmas Eve, I can tell you.

"Right in the middle of the evening, a call came from a family in a tenement around the corner. I knew all about them—or I thought I did—so I went. I just flung a cloak about me and ran off alone. Somehow I did not want any one with me."

Constance's eyes grew dim, and her under lip quivered.

"It was awful." Her voice sank low. "You see, with all the preparations going on at the Settlement House, we had sort of forgotten this—this family. They were not the noisy, begging kind, but there was a pitiful, little sick girl whom I had taken a liking to and to think that I should have forgotten her—and at that time, too! There was no tree in that home, Jock, there was nothing much, but the little dying girl and her mother.

"They didn't even blame me—oh, if they only had!" The honest tears ran down Constance's cheeks. "But they didn't. The mother said—and she apologized for troubling me, think of that!—that the baby wanted me to tell her a Christmas story. She just wouldn't go to sleep until I did, and she had been ailing all day. I—I forgot my dress, and tore off my cloak in that cold, empty room and I took that poor baby in my arms. Then—then the hardest part came—she—she didn't know me. She got the queerest little notion in her baby head—she—she thought I was an—angel. Oh! oh! and I wanted her to know me."

Down went the girlish head in the open pages of the character sketches.

"Well of all gol-durned nonsense!" Jock blurted out. "The whole blamed show oughter been exposed. I reckon the best job the company ever had to its credit was that happening of yours—the dress and the—the—rest of the picter. Lord!" Jock's feelings were running over as he looked upon the bowed head. The story had got hold of his tender heart. "Lord above! Just think of that sort of rum suffering going on back there. It's worse than what happens here. We've got wood to keep the kids warm in winter, and there's clean air and coolness in summer. I'm durned glad I cut it when"—he stopped short. Constance was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes.

"When I did," Jock added helplessly. "And now go on with that poor little child what you took to your bosom."

"That's all." Constance choked painfully. "The baby—died while I was telling her about the wonderful tree, and Santa Claus and the other joys she should have had, and never did have. I can see that hideous empty room, and—and that poor baby every time I shut my eyes."

"Here, look up now," Jock commanded, his feelings getting the best of him. "When life's so empty that you can't find things to do by opening your eyes, you better keep your eyes shut to all eternity. Calling up the past is the rottenest kind of folly in a world where things is happening."

Constance rallied to the stern call.

"And now," she said briskly, "I've given myself, heart and soul to—literature. I'll write of what I have seen, and lived!

"Listen, I'll read you a sketch or so. But first I'll explain. The local colour of my novel is drawn from—here."

Jock pulled himself together.

"Well, I'll be blowed!" he sympathetically ejaculated, "Here where there ain't, what you might say, enough local color to more than touch up the noses of the Black Catters."

"Jock! Now, see if you'd know it." She read a scrappy description of the village. "Would you recognize it?"

"With a footnote, it would go." Jock was all attention. "But I have my doubts as to whether Pete Falstar will take kindly to his place of residence being classified as a human pig-sty. That's laying the local colour on, with a whitewash brush, don't you think? A little dirt and disorder don't seem to call for such language."

"That is artistic license." Constance explained.

"Well, you ought to pay high for that kind of license—but maybe you do. Go on."

"I handle my subject without gloves," Constance began again.

"By gosh! I'd keep 'em on when I was tackling pig-stys and such; but don't mind me."

"And here; see if you can guess who this is?

"'The sleek, fat proprietor looked oily within and oily without. He oozed oil on the community that he was demoralizing with his poisonous whiskey and doctored beer.'"

"God bless and save us!" Jock rolled from side to side. "If you don't beat all for gol-durned sass. Why, Tate will sue you for damages if that great American novel ever strikes his vision. Oil! Thunderation; and poisonous whiskey, and doctored beer. Was it Society or Settlement what let light in on you, about such terms?"

"Neither. It's—inspiration."

"It's just plain imperdence, and it'll get you in trouble. Are you going to use names in that novel of yours?"

"Certainly not. Do you think I do not know my art? But you recognize Tate? Then he lives!"

"Good Lord! Know him? How under the everlasting firmament could I help knowing him? What other proprietor is there in St. AngÉ, you comical little bag of words? specially one as demoralizes the community with poisoned whiskey and doctored beer? Balls of fire! but this beats the band. Go on; go on."

When a man of thirty steps out of a starved exile and comes in contact with a girl like Constance Drew, it may be dangerous to "go on," but the exile will certainly want to.

Nothing loath; all sparkling and radiant, Constance swept along.

"And I've got—you, but maybe you will never forgive me. I took you at your—your worst—for don't you see when I use you—later—I'm going to redeem you and have you come out truly splendid."

Jock's jaw dropped, and the laugh fled from his overflowing eyes.

"Me?" he gasped. Constance nodded, and waved a pointed pencil toward him.

"Wait!" she ran her eye down the page. "'Beautiful woman—with a—Past'—that's the girl up in the other Masquerader's shack, that girl Joyce, you know, and Gaston—and here's Peggy Falstar—'woman sunk to man's level and reproducing her kind'—brief note of Billy Falstar as 'impish child'—oh! here you are!

"'Village Bacchus. Tall, handsome, but lost, apparently, to shame. Swaggering criss-cross down the road, laughing senselessly and shouting songs. Slave to appetite. Controlled by his brutal passions. When spoken to in this state, assumes manner of gentleman. Subconscious self—study in heredity.—Let a strong influence enter his life—handsome noble girl—redemption at end—splendid character.'"

"Good God!"

Constance dropped the book. The eyes that met her own had a look in them that drove the cold, which she had not felt before, to her very heart.

"What—what—is the matter?" she gasped.

"Did you—ever see me—like that?" The words came hoarsely.

"Yes. One day a few weeks ago. Ralph wanted you. I went to find you—and"—the girl's eyes dropped. She felt a sudden humiliation as if he had detected her reading his private letters.

"And I talked—rot and all the rest?"

"Yes. I never told Ralph; I knew it would hurt him—I had—no right to tell you this—it is only—copy for me."

"Copy?"

"Yes; stuff to work into the—novel."

"The novel? Ah, I remember. I'm going to be stuffed in with Tate and—and the others?"

"Yes; but don't you recall, you are to be redeemed—you are to be my—my hero—in the end you are to be—splendid."

A deep groan was the only reply to this; the groan and the look of growing misery on the man's face.

"You're to go back—you see I feel you once belonged somewhere else—and take up your life-work with——"

"With?" Jock repeated the word hopelessly.

"With her—the girl."

"What girl?"

"Why the girl I'm going to create. First I thought I'd have her—Joyce; but that doesn't stand clear in my thought—I cannot quite see just the sort of girl—that could rouse you to—to great things."

Filmer was staring at the speaker with dazed and pitiful eyes. Then Constance beheld a miracle. The stony misery melted as an infinite sadness and pity overflowed.

Jock stood up, plunged his hands in his pockets and looked down at the dissecter who had bared every sensitive nerve in his heart and soul.

"When—you write that book," the words drawled out the bitter thought, "just omit—me—please—if you have any mercy."

"Jock!" Constance sprang to her feet. "Jock—how could I know that you would care?"

"You—couldn't, of course."

"Is it because I saw you so?"

"No."

"You know of course—that I'd never speak of that to any one—I only used it for my book."

"If that will help your book—take it; but leave out——"

"What?"

"The girl—the redemption—and——"

"Why?"

"Can't you—guess?"

"No." But as the word passed her lips, she did guess—and what she surmised sent the blood rushing through her body.

"Don't be frightened, Miss Drew," Filmer was getting command of himself; "there isn't going to be any redemption; nor any girl—that's all; don't you see? There never is in such cases, and you want to be true to life in that first, great American novel. You got your brush in the wrong pot of local colour when you daubed me. No offence intended, or taken, I hope. God bless you! strike your pencil through all that came after the spree part. You're welcome to that, but I decline to let you ruin your reputation by offering up the rest to the public."

He was laughing again, and the agony had passed from his careless face.

"And now?" he asked, "which way?"

"I'm going—home."

"Well, well, come along. I'm bound for the Reverend Kid myself. I've got his mail in my pockets—and yours, too by thunder! You're too diverting, Miss Drew, you took my thoughts off business. Come on."