He, the man she loved—who thought in one wild hour that he loved her—was not of her world nor of her kind. He had given, given, given to her of his best and purest. God! how he had given. He had cast a glamour over her crudeness by his power and goodness, but underneath was—Jared's daughter and Jude's wife.
If he took her courageously back to his world they, those others like, yet unlike him, would see easily through the disguise, and would be quick enough to make both him and her feel it.
Without her, they would accept him. The past would be as if it had not been; but if he brought her to them from his past, it would be like an insult to them—an insult they would never forgive. And then—he would have no life; no place. He would have to go on being kind and good to her in a greater loneliness and desolation than St. Angé had ever known.
She could not escape the responsibility of her part in his life. She might keep on taking, taking, taking. On the other hand his old life had come back to him, not even waiting for his choice.
The woman who had misunderstood, had failed him in that hour of his need, had been sent by an all-powerful Force into the heart of the Northern Solitude to reclaim him, now that he had accomplished that which he had set himself to do.
Every barrier was removed. Even Death had been kind to that sweet, pale girl—she was ready to perform the glorious act of returning Gaston's own to him, if only she, Joyce, would let go her selfish, ignoble hold.
Now, if she were as noble as Gaston had striven to make her, there was but one thing to do. Go to that woman up at the bungalow, tell her all that she did not know. All about the heavy penalty weakness had paid for the crime committed by another. Tell of the splendid expiation and the hard-won victory, and then—let go her hold and, in Love's supreme renunciation, prove her worthiness to what God withheld.
The little living room of Gaston's shack was the battle-ground of Joyce's soul-conflict that winter day.
Pale and rigid, she crouched in the deep chair, her head buried on the arm where so often his dear hand had lain.
No; she could not! She would not! Then after a moment—"I must! or in all the future I shall hate myself." Then she grew calmer, and instinctively she began to plan about—going. She would leave both fires ready to light—he might come now at any time.