"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 God, since it had to be, that it was not my brother."
The room was growing cold. Joyce shivered.
"And then?" she faltered.
"Oh! then—" Gaston's face twitched, and his voice was bitter, "then came the star-gazing through the bars—and all the rest, until I came up here. Only one stuck to me through thick and thin."
"Your brother?" Joyce interrupted.
"My brother? No! Just a plain friend. I told him I did not want to hear a thing while I was shut away. I knew it would hold me back from getting what I could out of the experience. It's like hell to have the outside troubles and joys brought to you while you are bound hand and foot. I saw enough of that—it did more to keep men in the mud than anything else. I just kept that space of my life clear for expiation. When the gates opened for me one day—my friend was there with all the news in a budget.
"You see the lash that had cut deepest when I went away was something my mother said; 'You've broken the hearts of them who loved and trusted you.'
"Nothing had mattered so much as those words—and out of the disgrace, the loneliness, the misery and deadly labour, I had worked out a plan to make up to them for the wrong I had done. It was going to be about the biggest job a fellow ever undertook; but, do you know, I had hoped that I could do it?