Joyce had to come to a resolution at which she herself wondered, in forlorn helplessness, as if some other being within her had decided upon it and not she. That she, all shy, shrinking, reticent as she was, with the limitations of her peasant pride and incapacity for self-revelation, should attach a last desperate hope to the possibility of enlightenment from some one else’s judgment, was wonderful to herself. For how could she lay that tangled question before any one, or unfold her soul? how could any stranger know what her perplexity was, between the claims of the old tranquil yet enthusiastic affections of her youth, and the strange unconfessed dream of absorbing feeling which had swept her soul of late—between the pledges of her tender ignorance, and the fulfilments of a life to which fuller knowledge had come? She did not herself understand how she had come to stand at this terrible turning-point, or why she should thus be summoned to decide not only her own fate, but that of others; and how could she explain it to strangers who knew nothing, neither how she was bound, nor wherein she was free? And yet there came a longing over her which could not be silenced—to ask some one—to make a tribunal for herself, and plead her cause before it, and hear what the oracle would say. Perhaps it was because all her lights had failed her, and all her faculties contradicted each other, that this despairing thought suggested itself—to discover an oracle, and to find out what it would say.

Of whom could she ask, and who could fill this place to her? Not her father. Joyce did not say to herself that the good Colonel was not a wise man, though he was so kind. Had he been the wisest of men, she would have shrunk from placing her heart unveiled in his hand. For to the father everything must be said. He is no oracle; he is a sovereign judge: that was not the help her case required. Her step-mother was more impossible still. If not to him, still less to her, could the girl, so cruelly wounded, so torn in divers directions, lay open her misery and difficulty. Not to any one could she lay them open. It was an oracle she wanted—something to which a half-revelation, an enigmatical confession would suffice—who would understand before anything was spoken, and give a deliverance which, perhaps, would be capable of various interpretations, which should not approach too closely to the facts. This was what she wanted without knowing what she wanted, with only a strong longing to have light—light such as was not in her own troubled self-questionings and thoughts.

Joyce had not many friends among the people who surrounded Mrs. Hayward with a flutter of society and social obligations. Indeed Mrs. Hayward herself had not many friends, and it is doubtful whether she would have found one to whose judgment she could resort for advice, as Joyce meant to do. But, the girl was perhaps more discriminating by a natural instinct as to who was to be trusted—perhaps in her far higher ideality more trustful. At all events, there were two very different persons to whom, after much tossing about on the dark sea of her distress, her thoughts turned. A little light might come from them; she might unfold herself to them partially, fancifully, leaving them to guess the word of the enigma, finding some comfort in what they said, even if it should fall wide of the mark. When Mrs. Hayward set out to pay her visits in the afternoon, Joyce stole forth almost furtively, though all the world might have seen her going upon her innocent search after wisdom; but the world, even as represented in a comparatively innocent suburban place, would have been at once startled and amused to note at what shrine it was that Joyce sought wisdom and the teaching of the oracle. She went not to any of the notable people, not to the clergy, or even to Mrs. Sitwell, who was supposed to be her friend, and who was known to be so clever. Joyce did not at all know that the parson’s wife had played her false, and she had seen more of that lady than of any one else in the place. But this was not because of any innate sympathy, but because of the pertinacity with which Mrs. Sitwell had seized upon Joyce as a useful auxiliary in the carrying out of her own ends—and the girl’s instinct rejected that artificial bond, and put no faith in the cleverness which she acknowledged, nor even in the goodness after its kind, which Joyce’s mind was large enough to acknowledge too. She went not to Mrs. Sitwell, nor to the parson, Mrs. Sitwell’s husband, but she threaded through many lanes and devious ways until she came to a door in a wall with a little bright brass knocker, and a grating, and great thorny branches of a bare rose-tree straggling over. Within was a small neat green garden, and a little house looking out upon it with shining windows. And within that, coming hastily to the door to meet her, was Miss Marsham, whom everybody knew to be as good as gold, but nobody imagined to be wise or instructive in any way. Joyce had come to find her oracle here.

The room was small and low, full of old china, old pictures, a little collection of relics, in the midst of which their gentle mistress, a mild spirit clad with only as much body as was strictly essential, and with an old gown constructed on the same principles, with just as much old and somewhat faded silk as was strictly necessary, appeared in perfect harmony, the soul of the little dainty place. She received Joyce with the tenderest welcome, in which there was something more than her usual kindness, and an anxiety which Joyce, full of her own thoughts, never perceived. Miss Marsham was ready and prepared to be confided in. She was prepared for the story of Joyce’s youth, for the revelation of her peasant parents, and how for their good she had sacrificed herself to Colonel Hayward’s fancy—ready to understand at half a word, to condone and to condole, to give praise for the noble motive, the self-sacrifice, and only gently—very gently—to touch upon the deception, which the severest critic could not consider to be Joyce’s fault. She kissed her and said, ‘My dear child, my poor Joyce,’ with a tender pity which forestalled every explanation. Did she then already know Joyce’s trouble and sore perplexity? but how was it possible that she should know?

‘You must not think I have come just to call,’ Joyce said.

‘No, dear? but why shouldn’t you come just to call? There will never, never be any circumstances in which I shall not be glad to have you come. My dear, circumstances don’t matter at all to me when I know any one as I know you!’

Joyce was a little bewildered by this effusion. She said, with a faint smile, ‘And yet you don’t know me well. I have been here just five months, and part of that away——’

‘My love, when you understand a person and love a person, as I do you, the time does not count by months.’

‘That is what I feel: and I have nobody—nobody to look to:—you will say my father, Miss Marsham. He is kind, kind—but oh, I have not been brought up with him nor used to open my heart,—and in some things he knows only one language and me another—and besides, if I were to tell him everything, he would say what I was to do, and I would have to obey. And Mrs. Hayward with him, they would settle it all,—and I am not used to it, and I cannot——’

‘No, Joyce, I understand—it is they who have led you into it—you can’t ask advice from them.’

‘They did not lead me into it,’ said Joyce. ‘It was just nature led me into it, and the perversity of things. Will you ever have noticed in your life how things go wrong? Nobody means any harm, and all you do is innocent; and even if you were very prudent and weighed everything beforehand, there would not be one step that you could say afterwards—This was wrong. And yet things all turn wrong, and your heart is broken, and nothing is to blame.’

‘Oh, Joyce, words cannot say how sorry I am! There was one thing perhaps, my dear, a little wrong—for to deceive in any way, even if it seems to do no harm and is with the best motive—the highest motive, to help those you love——’

Joyce sighed softly to herself, no longer asking how Miss Marsham could know, then shook her head. ‘I wish it had been for that motive; but there was no love, no love,—I,’ with a sudden blush, ‘did not know what love meant.’

Miss Marsham looked up with an exclamation of astonishment on her lips, but stopped with her mouth open, wondering. Joyce, whose eyes were cast down, did not see the impulse at all.

‘He had read a great deal—a great deal,’ said the girl. ‘I have never met any one—oh, not here nor anywhere—so well instructed. I thought then that there was nothing so grand as that. He had read a great deal more than I!—he was my—superior in that. It is true, I always knew all the time that I was not—what seemed—— But that might never have come to anything, and besides, I would have thought shame. For I thought that to know the poets, and all that has been written—that was what made a gentleman. Oh, I think shame to say such a thing,—it doesn’t—— how can I say it? It seems there must be something more.’

Miss Marsham remained silent in simple bewilderment. Joyce was now talking her own language, which nobody understood.

‘You may say it was deceiving to let him think I cared for him, but that was never what I intended. He said at first, it was enough for him to care for me. Oh, but that is nothing, nothing!’ cried Joyce suddenly, ‘that is only the beginning. Though I cannot keep my word to him, I need not break it,—that would have been easy. It is far, far worse what is to come.’

Miss Marsham took Joyce’s hands into hers. She was lost in amazement, and felt herself swimming, floating wildly, at sea, among things altogether strange and incomprehensible. She could not reply, but there is always sympathy in a pressure of the hands.

‘There was nothing wrong in meeting another man that was my father’s friend, that was my dear lady’s son,’ said Joyce, very low; ‘how was I to know that he and me would see each other different from—common folk? How was I to know that they had made it up for him to be the love of—of another girl? And now here I stand,’ she cried, rising up holding out her hands in piteous explanation, ‘pledged to one, and caring nothing for him, harming another that but for me would do what was meant for him, would do—would do well—with a lady bred like himself, born like himself, not one that had been abandoned like me. Tell me what you would do if you were me! The lady comes and asks me—she has no right. She says that I know trouble and sorrow, but Greta never a disappointment, never a thing that was not happy—and that she’ll break her heart; and nobody cares for mine. And she says I should keep my word, though she was the first to say he was not the one for me. And oh, what am I to do—what am I to do?’

Joyce sank down again upon the seat, and covered her face with her hands.

‘Oh, my poor Joyce—my dear Joyce!’ Miss Marsham cried.

Her head was not very clear at any time—it was apt to get confused with a very small matter. And Joyce’s story was confusion worse confounded to the anxious hearer. Even what she thought to be her knowledge of the circumstances deepened Miss Marsham’s bewilderment. She knew of the man to whom Joyce was engaged, from whom all the information came; but the after episode—half told, hurried over, which Joyce had no mind to explain fully, which she addressed to the oracle—was as a veil thrown over poor Miss Marsham’s understanding. She knew none of these people; the name of Greta brought no enlightenment to her, nor did she know who the lady was, nor who the man was who was mixed up inextricably in this strange imbroglio. She drew Joyce’s hands from her face, and laid that hidden face upon her own kind breast, kneeling down to caress and to soothe the poor girl in her trouble. But what to say or what to do Miss Marsham knew not. She did not understand the delicate case upon which her advice was required. And the oracle was mute. There was no response to give. ‘Oh, my poor child, my dear child, my poor dear love!’ Miss Marsham cried.

After a minute Joyce raised her head and looked at her friend in whom she trusted. She was very pale, her eyes were wet with tears, and looked large and liquid in caves of trouble,—her mouth quivered a little, like the mouth of a child when its passion-fit is over, and there was a pathetic little break in her voice. ‘Tell me,’ she said, with a look that searched the very soul, ‘tell me what you would do—if you were me.’

‘Oh, my pretty Joyce—my poor dear!’

‘Tell me,’ the girl said, ‘would you break her heart and wound him, all for yourself? Would you break your word and your pledge that you gave when you were poor, all for yourself? as if you had to be happy whatever happened—you! And what right had you to be happy, any more than Greta—or Greta more than you?’

The question, heaven knows, was vague enough—but the oracle was no longer mute. The pilgrim at the shrine had touched the true chord, and at last the priestess spoke. She had a moment of that ecstasy, of that semi-trance of mingled reluctance and eagerness, which makes those pause who have the response of the unseen to give forth to feeble men. Her gentle eyes lit up, then dimmed again; a brightness came over her faded face, giving it a momentary gleam of eternal youth, then disappeared. She trembled a little as she held the votary to her breast.

‘Oh Joyce! my darling Joyce! I don’t know that I quite understand you, dear. It is all so mixed up. Things that I have heard and that you tell me are so different. I don’t know what to think—but if it’s a question between you and another, which is to take the happiness and let the other suffer—oh, my child, my dear! do I need to say it to you—do I need to tell you? Joyce, your heart tells you—it’s like a, b, c, to a woman. You know——’

‘I thought,’ said Joyce, with that sob in her throat, following with intent eyes every little movement of her agitated instructor— ‘I thought that was what you would say.’

‘Yes,’ said the vestal, the priestess of this new Dodona, ‘it is not in our will to choose or to change. You can’t leave the heartbreak to another. You have to take it, though your spirit may cry out and refuse. I am not wise to give you advice, oh my darling! but I know this, and every woman knows it. Oh, it isn’t all that do it, I know, for it’s not an easy thing. But when you have strength from above, you can do it. And what is more, it is not in your nature to do anything else. So don’t ask me what I would do. You could not—do—any other thing: being you and nobody else: Joyce that I know.’

‘No,’ said Joyce, stumbling, rising to her feet, meeting with a solemn look the wet and weeping eyes of her oracle, ‘no, not any other thing.’

‘Not any other thing.’ Miss Marsham would have kept her in her arms, would have wooed her to further speech, would have wept over her and caressed her, and expended all the treasures of her heart in soothing the martyr whom she had thus consecrated. But of this Joyce was not capable. She had got her oracle, and it was clear. It was what she had wanted, not advice, but that divine and vague enigma which corresponded with the enigma of her confession. She resisted gently the softness of her friend’s clinging embrace. Her eyes were full of the awe of the victim who consents and accepts, and is restrained by every solemnity of her religion from any struggle—but who already feels herself to be outside this world of secondary consolations, face to face with the awful realities of the sacrifice. ‘Don’t keep me,’ she said faintly, putting away the thin kind hands that would have held her, ‘I must go—I must go.’

‘Oh Joyce,’ cried Miss Marsham, stricken with a secret terror, ‘I hope I have said right!’

‘I am sure you have said right; it is what I knew. I could not—do—any other thing. Let me go, Miss Marsham, let me go, for more I cannot bear.’

‘Oh, my dearest, I hope I have done right! Oh, stay a little and tell me more! Oh Joyce, God bless you, God bless you, my dear, if you must go!’

She followed the girl to the little door, so flowery and embowered in summer, now overshadowed by those straggling bare branches of the rose-tree, which were good for nothing but to make, had that been wanted, a sharp garland of thorns. Joyce scarcely turned to answer her blessings and good-byes, but went on straight from the door as if hurrying to the place of sacrifice. The thought was folly, Miss Marsham said to herself, and yet it went with a chill to her heart and would not be chased away.