Joyce of the North Woods Part 29

"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. Ange!"

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 G.o.d'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 d.a.m.ns 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. Ange, 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 rea.s.sured 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 hoa.r.s.ely. 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 d.a.m.nable 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 G.o.d, since it had to be, that it was not my brother."

The room was growing cold. Joyce s.h.i.+vered.

"And then?" she faltered.