However, Billy was magnanimous in his power. He turned at the outer door and satisfied his mother's curiosity.
"Anything you want sent up to Joyce's?"
"Joyce's?" gasped Maggie. "Joyce's?"
Billy held her with a glance.
"Joyce's," he repeated. Then receiving no reply, he went out into the still, cold night.
Billy felt like a man who held the fortune of many in the hollow of his hand.
Knowing the ways of St. Angé men he felt sure the letter from "the backwoodsman" to Joyce would be several days, or a week, in materializing, perhaps much longer. It was for him to be ready and watchful; but there was no immediate call for action. His sympathies were so largely aroused for Joyce, that he meant to overcome his yearning to be with the object of his passion, and on that first night he intended going to Gaston's shack and setting Joyce right about the future and his own part in the drama.
Billy realized that he must shield himself. Birkdale and Lauzoon must never know of his presence in the hut. Joyce, Billy felt sure, would coöperate with him. If he and she could find Gaston, all might be safe and well; but while Gaston was absent, danger lurked. However, Joyce must refuse to meet "the backwoodsman"; after that they two, Billy and Joyce, must find a path that connected Gaston with them, and make him secure from the plots of the evil Birkdale and the weak, foolish Jude of the unerring shot.
All this Billy thought upon as he strode forward whistling comfortably, and his chest swelling proudly.
It was one thing to whistle on the highway of St. Angé, and quite another to whistle in the wilds of the North Solitude.