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 comradeship, 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 passed without a sight of him; he came almost daily afterward. It was like Jock to assume the new relation in this easy, companionable way.
Joyce was grateful. This was but another proof of Gaston's greatness.
"Everything going straight, Joyce?" The question came one day while the keen eyes were taking in the store of wood, water and other necessaries.
"Everything, Jock; and the store-room is stocked. Sit down—and tell me the news."
Joyce was not particularly interested, but it would put Jock at ease.
Jock gracefully flung himself into Gaston's chair. The two were, of course, in the living room.