Joyce of the North Woods Part 25

Then they smiled at each other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRESENTLY HE OPENED HIS EYES ... AND THERE SAT THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS NEAR HIM]

It was hard for Drew to readjust his ideas and fit this beautiful woman into the guise of the Magdalene of his late thoughts.

Vaguely he saw that whatever she had undergone, she had brought from her experiences new beauty; a new force, and a power to guard her possessions with marvellous calm. She was being made as she went along in life. Her spiritual and mental architecture, so to speak, could not be properly estimated until all was finished. This conclusion chilled Drew's enthusiasm. He would have felt kinder had she been less sure of herself.

"You are looking--well, Mrs. Lauzoon." Drew felt the awkwardness of the situation growing.

"Please, Mr. Drew, I'm just Joyce again. Perhaps you have not heard?"

Her great eyes were still smiling that contented, peaceful smile.

"I've heard. Need we talk of it, Joyce?"

"Unless you're too weak, we must; now or at some other time. You see I have been waiting to talk to you. I've been saying over and over, 'He'll understand. He'll make me sure that I've done right.'"

Drew, for the life of him, could not repress a feeling of repulsion.

Joyce noticed this, and leaned back, folding her hands in her lap.

Drew saw that her hands were white and smooth. Then she gathered her heavy, red cloak around her, and hid those silent marks of her new refinement.

"They call me"--the old, half-childish smile came to the face looking full at Drew--"the worst woman in town. At least, they call me that when they think I won't hear. You know they were always afraid of Mr. Gaston a little. But I hear and it makes me laugh."

The listener closed his eyes for a moment. He could better steady his moral sense when that sweet beauty did not interfere with his judgment.

"You see, if I had stayed on--with Jude, and lived--that--awful life": a sudden awe stole into her voice--"then, if they had thought of me at all, they would have thought of me as--good. It would have been--good for me to have--poor, sad little children--like--like my--my baby--You've heard?" Her lips were quivering. The play of expression on her face, the varying tones of her voice unnerved Drew. He nodded to her question.

"It was such a--dreadful, little, crooked form, Mr. Drew--such--a hideous thing to hold a--a--soul. Just once, the _soul_ smiled at me through the big, dark eyes--it wanted me to know it _was_ a soul--then it went away."

Even while the smile trembled on the girl's lips the tears stood in her eyes.

"You see," she went on, "no one would have blamed me if I had gone on like that--the misshapen children, and soon they would have stopped having souls--and Jude's cruelty,"--again that fearsome catch in the voice--"they would have called me good--if I had stayed on--but you will understand?" She bent toward him with pleading and yearning in her face.

"Oh! how I have just hungered to talk it over with you--and to feel sure! There isn't any one else in all the world, you know, to whom I could say this."

"How about Gaston?" Drew heard his own words, and they sounded brutal, but they were forced from him.

Joyce stared surprisedly.

"Why--we never talk of--of that. How could we? But I read--and Mr.

Gaston has taught me to think--straight--and don't you notice how much better I talk?"

"Yes--and dress." All that was hard in Drew rose in arms. This girl was like the rest of her kind for all her wood-setting and strange beauty.

The only puzzling thing in the matter was her desire to talk it out with him.

"I have lots of pretty things to wear." Joyce smoothed her heavy cloak.

"He's the kindest man I ever knew. That's another reason I had for wanting to come to you. I want you to show him just _how_ you understand. I begin to see how lonely he is--how lonely he has always been up here--there is no one quite like him--but you. But Mr. Drew, do you remember what you preached that day you--married us--Jude and me, I mean?"

"I'm afraid not--so many things have happened since." Drew tried to keep his feelings in check.

"Well, I remember every word." The glowing face again bent toward Drew.

"Can't you think back? It was about what we've brought into the world, what we get here and shape into _our_ lives, and then what we leave when we go--away. The blazed trail, you know, and clearing the way for others. Oh, it was the sort of thing that when you thought about it you didn't _dare_ go on being careless."

"I do--recall." Her intensity was gripping Drew in spite of himself. "It was an old fancy. But it has helped me to live."

"It has _made_ me live. I tried it fair and honest with Jude, Mr. Drew, but no one could do it with him. The trail got choked with--awful things--and I only had strength enough to run away, after one year. If I had stayed--I--I would have rotted as I stood." She breathed thick and fast. Her old life, even in memory, smothered her. Drew caught a slight impression of what it must have been for this strange-natured woman. He began to think she was not yet awake, and the thought made him kinder in his estimate of her.

"But," he said gently, "was there no other way out of your difficulty?"

She looked pityingly at him.

"I didn't go to Mr. Gaston to--to stay," she whispered: "there was a reason for my going--a reason about Jude--then things happened that I guess were meant to happen. There was no other way out for me--but I had not thought that far. I guess if G.o.d ever took care of any one, he took care of me that night."

This utterly pagan outlook on the proprieties positively stirred Drew to unholy mirth. But it did something else--it made him realize that the girl before him was quite outside the reach of any of his preconceived ideas. He could afford to sit down upon her plane and feel no moral indignation. Perhaps, after all, she had brought his work to him when she came herself.

"You see, after Jude and Mr. Tate and Jock Filmer found me there late at night--there was nothing else for me to do. Jude would have killed me--if I had gone away alone--he was--awful. Besides, where could I have gone?"

"Gaston should have acted for you. He knew what he was doing to you."

The righteous indignation confused the girl.

"Why, he did act for me." The fire sprang to the wondering eyes. "He is the best man on earth. There are more ways of being good than one. The people here can't see that--but surely you can. Mr. Gaston made my life safe and clean. I could grow better every day. Why, look at me."

She flung her arms wide as if by the gesture she laid bare her new life.

"He has taught me until I can see and think, wide and sure. He is always gentle--and he never lets me work until--until I'm too tired to want to live.

"Isn't it being good when you are growing into the thing G.o.d meant you to be? Ought you not to take any way G.o.d offers to reach that kind of life?" Joyce flung the questions out fiercely. She was perplexed by Drew's att.i.tude. If he were as much like Gaston as she had believed, why did he look and act as he was doing?

"If--if you have, and if you are, all that you say, why do you question me so?" Drew asked. He was feeling his way blindly through this new moral, or unmoral, thicket.

"Because sometimes a queer thought comes to me. I know it is because these people can not understand; but _you_ can, and when you have told me it is all right--I shall never have the thought again."

"What _is_ the thought, Joyce?"

"You see," she almost touched him now in her intensity, "I do not know anything about Mr. Gaston--really. About what he was, what his life was before he came here. I would not hurt him for anything G.o.d could give to me--and sometimes I have wondered if--if in that life that was; the life that _might_ come again to him, you know,--for for he is _so_ different from any one here--I wonder if what he has done for me, could hurt him? Could anything that is so heavenly good for me--hurt him?--tell me, tell me!"

And now Drew dropped his eyes and sent a swift prayer to G.o.d for forgiveness.

He had thought her without conscience, without soul. He felt himself in a dim valley, and he hardly dared to raise his eyes to her.

"I am perfectly happy." The words quivered to him, and belied themselves. "And he says he--is--but would he be if he were back there--where he came from? In my getting of _my_ life, am I taking from _his_?"

"Good G.o.d!"

"You--you do not understand, either?"

"Yes; I do, Joyce--I understand. I understand."

"Am I hurting him?"