"Please, Mr. Drew, I'm just Joyce again. Perhaps you have not heard?" Her great eyes were still smiling that contented, peaceful smile.
"I've heard. Need we talk of it, Joyce?"
"Unless you're too weak, we must; now or at some other time. You see I have been waiting to talk to you. I've been saying over and over, 'He'll understand. He'll make me sure that I've done right.'"
Drew, for the life of him, could not repress a feeling of repulsion. Joyce noticed this, and leaned back, folding her hands in her lap.
Drew saw that her hands were white and smooth. Then she gathered her heavy, red cloak around her, and hid those silent marks of her new refinement.
"They call me"—the old, half-childish smile came to the face looking full at Drew—"the worst woman in town. At least, they call me that when they think I won't hear. You know they were always afraid of Mr. Gaston a little. But I hear and it makes me laugh."
The listener closed his eyes for a moment. He could better steady his moral sense when that sweet beauty did not interfere with his judgment.
"You see, if I had stayed on—with Jude, and lived—that—awful life": a sudden awe stole into her voice—"then, if they had thought of me at all, they would have thought of me as—good. It would have been—good for me to have—poor, sad little children—like—like my—my baby—You've heard?" Her lips were quivering. The play of expression on her face, the varying tones of her voice unnerved Drew. He nodded to her question.
"It was such a—dreadful, little, crooked form, Mr. Drew—such—a hideous thing to hold a—a—soul. Just once, the soul smiled at me through the big, dark eyes—it wanted me to know it was a soul—then it went away."
Even while the smile trembled on the girl's lips the tears stood in her eyes.