ppened, father, before you came here?" she asked quickly. Her
directness, and the slight she paid to his personal reflections, ruffled
Jared's complacency. He was not ready to confess more than was
absolutely necessary.

"Just one of them misunderstandings," he replied, slipping into St.
Ange's carelessness of speech, "that happens now and again to any young
man with a fine taste and slim purse. A matter of business! I always
calculated to go back and make it straight, after the first flash had
passed and I had money enough. I never give up or got discouraged. It
was your mother losing grip sort of set me back; and then your raising
and expenses here, kinder held me down. But the spirit in me has soared
nevertheless."

"Sometimes it seems to me," Joyce's eyes grew dreamy, "that every one in
St. Ange has something to keep still about. Every one seems to be here
because he has to, not because he wants to. People seem to drift in here
like logs after a spring freshet--and they get jammed."

Jared laughed. The idea caught his fancy.

"You've hit it, Joyce!" he said, "You've hit it all right. Jammed, by
damn! that's it; but to carry the simile further, when the jam is
loosened up, there's going to be some logs as gets away."

"_Where_ could we go, father, and how?"

The pleading intensity of the girl encouraged Jared. He refilled his
pipe, imagined himself in the mirror trimmed up and fashionably attired,
and then drove his axe to the heart of the matter.

"When all's said and done, girl," he began, "I've been a pretty good dad
to you. Given you years of schooling and stood by you when I might have
skipped and led my own life. Many a man with his wife dead, and a kid
on his hands, _has_ done it. I've worked for you, and given you the best
home in St. Ange; and now if you let me play the cards that you've got
in your hands, we'll get out of this and live in clover to the end o'
time."

"I don't know what you mean," Joyce gasped.

This was no idle talk. She was fascinated and frightened. It seemed as
if her father had his fingers on the rope that was strangling the life
out of her.

"You've got the winning cards, my girl, if I don't miss my guess. It's
all in the playing now. I've had one eye on you all along, Joyce. I've
seen, like any kind father might, that there ain't a young feller
between here and Hillcrest but would be glad to have you. But like a rap
on the _shut_ eye it has just been sprung on me that Myst