phere of wickedness. The
matter was in them. It must, of course, come out. So Billy swore now
with only an occasional hitch where his indignation muddled
pronunciation.

"Billy's got a fine flow of language," Birkdale put in amusedly. "For a
youngster, I don't think I ever heard it equalled." Birkdale was about
to urge Billy to renewed effort, when something the boy was wedging in
among his evil words caught his attention.

"I was just a-telling him--" more lurid expressions--"'bout Joyce and
Mr. Gaston. It didn't seem like nothing; just them two being beaux like
all girls and fellers, but Jude he did me dirt, he did!" Billy stopped
rubbing his eyes.

He was interested, himself, in the effect his words now had. For a
moment he feared all the men were going to rise up against him as Jude
had done. A silence fell upon the group. Filmer gave one keen glance at
the imp on the doorstep, and then refilled his pipe and leaned back in
his wooden chair.

Tom Smith, the ticket agent of the Station, looked as if some one had
dashed water in his face, so startled was he; and Jared Birkdale simply
stared open-mouthed at the spy in their midst. Then Tate, the
proprietor, with the tact for which he was noted, went to the bar and
began filling glasses.

St. Ange had received a shock; but St. Ange took its shocks in a
peculiar way. It reserved its opinion until it had drunk on them.

Soon after the revelation Birkdale went home without a word having been
spoken by any one on the subject so suddenly thrust upon their notice.

Jared had gone home to assure himself that Joyce had actually grown up
to the extent of making Billy Falstar's remarks possible.

The afternoon's contemplation had caused him some astonishment.

Joyce _was_ grown up! Then he had slept on the knowledge, and dreamed of
other days--a life apart, and beyond St. Ange.

St. Ange was a young place; it had no antiquity; almost all who lived
there had had a setting in some other time and environment.

Jared recalled, in his thoughts that night, the beginnings of things in
his life. Joyce's mother, and the babies who had come and gone like
little ghosts, each one taking more of the wife's and mother's beauty
and power.

Then that flight to the St. Ange lumber camp--it was really that,
nothing less--the attending discomfort and paralyzing reality of what
lay before!

Joyce was born the year after the settlement in the rough forest home,
and then poor Mrs. Birk