The letter Billy had brought had not for a moment deceived her. She counted it now as but one of the links in the chain that was dragging her away from Gaston.
It was either Jude or her father who had sent the note. Well, it did not matter, it was the best possible escape that could have been conceived.
Then her plans ran on. She would pack her own pretty things—out of sight! They must not confuse, or call for pity. There would be no note. She, that woman at the bungalow would explain, and would tell him that there could be no reconsideration, for she, Joyce, had gone to her—husband!
At that point Joyce sprang up, and her eyes blazed feverishly.
No; she was going to do no such thing. She was going to wait just where she was with folded hands and eager love. When Gaston came he should decide things. She would not interfere with her future. She would hide nothing; neither would she disclose anything. Why should she strangle her own life, with the knowledge she had neither sought nor desired?
The brilliant afternoon sun crept toward the west, and it shone into the side window and through the screen of splendid fuchsias which clambered from sill to top of casement.
Gaston might come—now! Perhaps he had failed to locate Jude, and would return to consider. Well, then, she could put him on Jude's trail. Gaston, not she, should meet the "woodsman" in Lola Laval's deserted house.
In the sudden up-springing of this hope, Joyce quite forgot the face of the woman at the bungalow.
A freakish yearning to reproduce the one crowning moment of her life possessed the girl.
She would build a great fire upon the hearth, and make the room beautiful. She would don—the yellow gown, and, if he came, he should find her as he had left her.