blue-and-white checked gown; short and scant it was, but daintily fresh
and sweet. She had her poor little best hat on--a hat with a bunch of
roses on the side--and she carried a large basket in her hand.

Jared stared at her as if she were part of a nightmarish dream.

"Where are you going?" he asked hoarsely, a new fear gripping him.

"It doesn't matter to you, father. I'm just--going."

Jared experienced a shock as he realized how far this girl had already
gone from him.

"Good-bye," she faltered; "good-bye, father."

She turned from him and walked to the door. Then a latent power for good
roused Jared.

"Joyce," he called after her; "there's twenty dollars left--take it all,
girl."

"No."

"Then for God's sake take half!" He was pleading, pleading with a woman
for the first time in his selfish, depraved life.

Joyce turned and looked at him, and the tears filled her eyes.

"No," she repeated, "I--I couldn't take it. I don't want it; but I'm
going to Isa Tate, father."

How frightfully still and lonely she had left the little house. Jared
looked at the old furniture and found it strange and unnatural. The
summer day grew dim as he waited there among the ruins of all that he
thought had been his own. No dinner; no probable supper--Jared thought
upon the physical discomfort, too, but he was sober enough, and shocked
enough to give heed to the graver side of the situation.

What he suffered as the afternoon faded and the ticking of the clock
thudded on his senses, no one could ever know.

We may leave retribution for sin out of our scheme of
things-as-they-should-be for others. Each sin takes care of itself, and
burns and blisters as it strikes in. Men may suffer without giving
outward sign. Justice is never cheated, and we may trust her workings
alone. Jared suffered. Suffered until nerves and body could bear no
more, and then he went down to the Black Cat to face the situation Joyce
had created and deal with it in his own fashion.

CHAPTER IV

When Joyce went with bowed head from the only semblance of a home that
had ever been hers, she carried with her, in the rough basket, all that
she could rightfully call her own in personal effects. The load was not
heavy and she scarcely noticed it as she walked rapidly through the
maple thicket which divided her father's garden-place and the Long
Meadow.

She felt like an exile, indeed. A friendless creature who had no real
hold upon any one.

Sh