d to grip and command the situation, he was aware of a
power in Joyce--a power he had unconsciously, perhaps, sensed
before--that bade him stand afar until she beckoned him.

As he neared her little house, before even he saw the lights, he heard a
song. It was that song! It met the rhythm in his own heated fancy--he
and Joyce seemed to be singing it together:

Alouette,
Alouette.

The light was streaming through open window and door. Inside Joyce was
preparing the evening meal, stepping lightly between table and stove as
she sang. Jude dared not enter unannounced, and his pride held him
silent.

What was he afraid of? Was he not he, and Joyce but a girl? Still he
kept his distance.

"Joyce!" The song within ceased, and the singer stepped to the open
doorway.

"That you, father?" No answer came. "Father?"

Then Jude came into the light.

"You, Jude? Come in; father's late. I never wait for him and I am as
hungry as a wolf."

Joyce had been one of the few girls who had gone to the Hillcrest school
as long as paternal authority permitted, and she showed her training.

"I ain't come for no friendly call," muttered Jude, slouching in and
dropping on to a wooden chair beside the table.

Joyce turned and looked at him, and the glow from the hanging lamp fell
upon her.

She was tall and slim, almost to leanness, but there were no awkward
angles and she was as graceful as a fawn.

Her skin was pale, clear and smooth, her eyes wide apart and so dark as
to be colourless, but of a wondrous softness. Her hair was of that shade
of gold that suggests silver, and in its curves, where the sun had not
bleached it, it was full of tints and tones.

"What have you come for?" she asked, as a child might have asked it,
wonderingly and interestedly.

"I want to ask you something, and I want the truth."

"Oh!" Joyce sat opposite, and let her clasped hands fall upon the table
laid out for the evening meal with the brown bowl of early asters set in
the centre. She forgot her hunger, and the steaming pot on the stove
bubbled unheeded.

"What you want to know, Jude? You look mighty upset."

Jude saw with his new, keen vision that she was startled and was
sparring for time. "It's about," he leaned forward, "it's about you
and--and him. I saw you in the Long Medder. I saw him hold your hands
and--and kiss you." The words smarted the dry, hot lips. "I--I want to
know what it means."

Jude was trembling visibly as he