n.

Joyce smiled--all was now safe with her. She would never feel tempted
again. It became a comfort to sit near the chest. She deserted the
living room and made a huge fire upon Gaston's hearth. Evenings she took
her book or sewing there, and the chest with its secrets seemed like a
friend who, from very nearness of comradeship, had no need to speak its
hidden thoughts.

In the desolation of the mid-winter loneliness, the pale woman grew to
feel, when in Gaston's room, a high courage and strength. Everything
would come out right. Details were not to be considered. Gaston had
always been all-powerful; he would conquer now. What did the waiting
count? He, meanwhile, was tracing Jude. Soon he would return, having
freed her from every evil thing of the past. He would find her as he had
left her--a woman fitted by a great love to follow whither he led.

And then--as the long evenings pressed silently cold and dark around the
shack, her fancy ran riot. All that she had yearned for; all, all that
the books had suggested, she was to see. Mountain peaks and roaring
ocean; strange people like, yet so unlike, Gaston. To think that all
this was going to happen to her--old Jared's little Joyce.

A few days after Gaston's departure Jock Filmer walked into the shack
quite as easily as if months had not passed without a sight of him; he
came almost daily afterward. It was like Jock to assume the new
relation in this easy, companionable way.

Joyce was grateful. This was but another proof of Gaston's greatness.

"Everything going straight, Joyce?" The question came one day while the
keen eyes were taking in the store of wood, water and other necessaries.

"Everything, Jock; and the store-room is stocked. Sit down--and tell me
the news."

Joyce was not particularly interested, but it would put Jock at ease.

Jock gracefully flung himself into Gaston's chair. The two were, of
course, in the living room.

"There's company up to the bungalow," he spoke from the fullness of his
heart; "a widder girl."

"A--a widow?" Joyce was for a moment perplexed.

"Yes. She don't look a day older than Drew's sister, and she's powerful
cheerful for an afflicted person. But maybe she ain't afflicted. They
ain't, always. She looks as if she was dressing up in them togs for fun,
and at first glimpse it strikes one as sacrilegious. Something like a
kid using holy words in its play."

Joyce smiled. After all it was good to have the dear human to