Joyce of the North Woods Part 53

"Ruthie! Ruth Dale, where are you? Come, let's go and see how things look the morning after?"

Constance Drew had given Gaston his answer. By the magic of that name she had connected the Past and the Present. The shock was tremendous, but Gaston bore it with only a tightening of the lips to show the agony he was enduring.

Presently an aimless question broke the unendurable stillness of the room.

"Who--is--that, Drew?"

"Ruth Dale--your brother's widow."

"So--he is dead?" At such vital times in life, the mind leaps over chasms of events, and takes much for granted.

"Yes; he died a year ago."

"How long--have you known, Drew--about him and me?"

"Only a few nights ago. He was my friend for a comparatively few years--but he was--a dear friend!" Drew spoke as if defence were necessary.

"I wonder--how much you _do_ know, Drew?" Gaston's face quivered. He began to understand Joyce's soul-struggle.

"Everything, Dale," the name clung uncertainly upon the speaker's lips; "everything--vital. Philip confessed--the week before he died."

Both men lowered their eyes. They dared not face each other for a moment.

The fire crackled and the clock ticked. Every sense was sharpened and quickened in Dale until it was painful.

Objects in the room stood out clearly to his uncaring sight; the snap of the fire, the tick of the clock smote like separate reports upon his hearing; and while he lived he was to recall, when he smelled burning pine, this tense moment. Presently he rose unsteadily and reached out for his coat and hat like a blind man.

"Well, Drew," he said, making an effort to speak evenly, "there doesn't seem to be anything more to say. I am going. Good-bye."

"Dale--where are you going?" Drew was beside him.

"I'm going to try and find--Joyce Lauzoon."

"She--has--gone--to--her husband! He sent for her--and she went." Drew spoke with an effort; but before the look on John Dale's face, he staggered back. Hopeless rage, defeated desire blanched and fired in turn the strong features. Then without a word Dale strode from the room.

CHAPTER XX

John Dale went directly to his shack. What else was there for him to do until he could find another trail through the blank that surrounded him?

When he had entered his home the night before, G.o.d knew he had been sorely distressed. He was going back to the woman he loved with her fetters still unloosened. Worn and spent, he had permitted himself the relaxation of spending a few days with her before he started out again on the quest of Jude. He had found the shack deserted, but every pitiful evidence of Joyce's thought for his comfort was apparent. He had lighted the fire and lamp; had searched for note or other explanation, and, finding none, he had eaten hastily and gone to Filmer's house. There desolation again greeted him.

Finally he had concluded that Joyce had gone to Isa Tate. This was a poor solace, but it stayed him through the long night; an early visit to the Black Cat proved this last hope vain.

Now, with the later knowledge searching into his soul, Dale noticed the careful arrangements Joyce had made, before she slipped back into the h.e.l.l from which he had once rescued her.

She had taken only her own poor belongings. The shabby gowns and trinkets that had been found among the ruins of the home Jude had laid low.

One silent token of the flight brought the stinging tears to Dale's eyes.

At the last, there must have been haste, for near the door of Joyce's bedroom lay the mate of the baby's sock that Isa Tate was hiding at that very moment.

Poor, dead baby! He was pleading for the pretty mother who in his brief life had so tenderly pleaded for him.

Isa had wept over the tiny shoe, and now John Dale picked the mate up reverently, and put it back where he knew Joyce always had kept it.

Manlike he did not give himself blindly up to his misery. Life must go on somehow--and while he sought a way out of the blackness that enshrouded him, he must prepare himself.

He replenished the fire, and then when high noon flooded the living room with a pale glow, he set forth a meagre but nouris.h.i.+ng meal.

In the performing of these homely tasks he found a kind of comfort. It brought Joyce back to him in a sense.

During the early afternoon hours he smoked and thought. Things became clearer, more fixed in his mind.

Of course Joyce had been driven to Jude by a mistaken idea that she was proving her deep love. Almost from the first, Dale thought of Ruth Dale detached from the shock of her mere name as it had struck his brain and heart in Drew's study. The old, vital charm of Ruth's personality; her sweet, convincing power, when she chose to exert it, now rose in his memory. Joyce would be but a baby in the hands of such a woman.

A fierce indignation swayed the man. Gone was the sweet memory of the control that that same charm had once had over him. Only as it now had touched Joyce did he consider it, and every fibre of his being rose in resentment.

The savage in him gained strength. He would follow Joyce and have her yet--in spite of all that had pa.s.sed!

When Joyce saw and knew--what would he and she care for the rest? He could deal with Jude--there was still money.

The wild claimed precedence over the innate refinement in Dale, and he rose to begin his search. He glanced at the clock. It was four. He could get--somewhere before dark.

The prospect of action gave him relief and he was just turning to the inner room, when a timid tap upon the outer door stayed him.

His heart gave a great throb. Had she come? Had she returned to him? Had she found the way back to h.e.l.l impossible after he--the man she had deserted--had shown her a path to heaven?

"Come!" he commanded as if defying any other hold that might have power over her.

Pale, trembling and enveloped in the fur coat and hood, Ruth Dale entered and closed the door behind her.

Her eyes were wide and fear-filled, but self-possession was not lost.

"John!" she cried pleadingly; "as soon as they told me--I came."

Her outstretched hands recalled Dale to the present.

"Ruth!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, going to her; "this is--kind of you. Let me take your wraps. Here, sit down."

It was a relief to have her a little distance from him. He took a chair on the opposite side of the hearth, and struggled to regain his composure. For the life of him he could not fix his ident.i.ty in the place where the sudden convulsion of events had cast them all.

He was an exile from the past of which this lovely woman was a part, and the present had no s.p.a.ce for her.

In a dazed way he noted how exactly the same Ruth looked. When he had dropped her hands--way back there in time, she appeared precisely the same to him as she did now, with those same little jewelled hands lying white and soft in her lap. She had worn a bright gown then, Dale recalled, but even the gloomy raiment that now enfolded her had no power to change the woman of her.