d
dug him up and put him--" In his endeavour to keep Drew from more unsafe
topics, Filmer had plunged straight into an abyss.

"Put him where?" Drew felt the gripping of life. It hurt, but it
stimulated him. He was suffering with his people--his people! Joyce's
lovely face, as he remembered it, pleaded with him for sympathy. It was
her face that had first given him assurance. She should not call in
vain.

"Oh! back of where she is stopping now. They've made the spot quite a
little garden plot, and--"

"Filmer, see here, tell me all about it!"

"Well, by thunder, then, here is the yarn. You see in the first place,
you didn't marry Jude and Joyce as tight as an older and more
experienced hand would have done. I ain't blaming you, but I've used the
thought to help me to be more Christian in my views about what happened.
The knot you tied was a slipknot all right."

A shadow passed over the sick man's face.

"You mean--" he began.

"I certainly do. There was a hell of a--excuse me--there was a rumpus of
some sort the night the kid was buried. It ended up with a general
smash-a-reen of furniture, pictures and such--and I guess Joyce came in
for a share of bruises, from what has leaked out since. But the outcome
was, she walked up to Gaston's shack that same evening, and what
happened there hasn't got into the society news yet; but when Jude and
me and Tate went up to straighten out what _I_ thought was a drunken lie
of Lauzoon's, there she was all right, wrapped up in Gaston's red
blanket, his arm around her, and him asking what we was going to do
about it?"

"What have you--done?" the even words came slowly.

"Nothing. Jude evaporated. I got a bit of a jog about Gaston; I ain't
over virtuous, but Gaston was a sort of pattern to me, and I'd got him
into my system while we was working on your house. He made me--believe
in something clean and big--and I didn't enjoy seeing him spattered with
mud of his own kicking up. But Lord! It ain't any of my business."

"And the others here? Do they make her and him--feel it?"

Filmer laughed.

"You forget," he replied; "Gaston's got about all the floating capital
there is around here. Where he gets it, is his own affair, and him and
Joyce don't ask no favours. The whole thing has settled into shape. You
needn't get excited over it. Of course, the women folks have warned your
aunt and sister off. I believe they call Joyce the worst woman in the
place--when they're whisperi