Joyce of the North Woods Part 34

"Did you--ever see me--like that?" The words came hoa.r.s.ely.

"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 pa.s.sed her lips, she did guess--and what she surmised sent the blood rus.h.i.+ng 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. G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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."

CHAPTER XIV

Joyce, waiting in the solitude of the shack under the pines, heard and saw little of what was going on in St. Ange. She was living at high pressure, and she had not even the relief of companions.h.i.+p to divert her from her lonely vigils.

Naturally the exhilaration of the night that Gaston left her, pa.s.sed and the dull monotony of the daily tasks performed perfunctorily with no charm of another's approbation and sharing, lost the power of holding her thoughts.

She ate, and made tidy the little house in quite the old way, but the large dreaming eyes looked beyond the narrow confines, and grew pathetic as they searched the white fields and hidden trails off toward the Northern and Southern Solitudes.

Which way had he gone? From which direction would he return? Everything was ready for him--it always had been since the night he left--and she, herself, once the daily routine was over, donned her prettiest garments, not the golden gown! and waited either by the glowing fire or by the little windows.

Early in the day following Gaston's departure, she had discovered the key in the lock of the chest! The sight for a moment, made her tremble.

Had he left it by mistake? Had he left it designedly, now that he had taken her completely into his confidence?

But had he? Joyce flushed and paled at the thought. After all, what had he really told her? She did not know, even, his true name nor the place from which he had come.

No; she knew very little. Shaken from his indifference by her beauty and charm into a realizing sense of the woman he had helped to form, Gaston had indeed broken his silence and voiced the one great tragedy of his life to her--and she had superbly stood the test; but that was all!

In the chest lay, perhaps the rest! His name; the name of those who had taken part in all that had gone before the terrible time of his trouble.

For a moment a paralyzing temptation came to Joyce to solve for herself, by the means at hand, the mystery which still surrounded the man she loved with a completeness and abandon that controlled every thought and act of her life. But it was only a momentary weakness. Her love s.h.i.+elded her from any shortcoming that could possibly lower her.

Bravely she walked up to the chest, and proved herself by trying the lid to see if the chest were unlocked. It was. Gaston had not even taken that precaution.

Joyce smiled--all was now safe with her. She would never feel tempted again. It became a comfort to sit near the chest. She deserted the living room and made a huge fire upon Gaston's hearth. Evenings she took her book or sewing there, and the chest with its secrets seemed like a friend who, from very nearness of comrades.h.i.+p, had no need to speak its hidden thoughts.

In the desolation of the mid-winter loneliness, the pale woman grew to feel, when in Gaston's room, a high courage and strength. Everything would come out right. Details were not to be considered. Gaston had always been all-powerful; he would conquer now. What did the waiting count? He, meanwhile, was tracing Jude. Soon he would return, having freed her from every evil thing of the past. He would find her as he had left her--a woman fitted by a great love to follow whither he led.

And then--as the long evenings pressed silently cold and dark around the shack, her fancy ran riot. All that she had yearned for; all, all that the books had suggested, she was to see. Mountain peaks and roaring ocean; strange people like, yet so unlike, Gaston. To think that all this was going to happen to her--old Jared's little Joyce.

A few days after Gaston's departure Jock Filmer walked into the shack quite as easily as if months had not pa.s.sed without a sight of him; he came almost daily afterward. It was like Jock to a.s.sume the new relation in this easy, companionable way.