Front matter (continued 2)

As her nerves grew calm and steady the experiences of the night of Donelle's crisis lost their hold.

"She heard my name at the Home," Jo argued, "and I myself spoke it when she was the most frightened and on the verge of fever. In the muddle and confusion of delirium it came to the surface with the rest of the floating bits. That's all."

Still there was a lurking familiarity about the girl that haunted Jo's most prosaic hours. It lay about the girl's mouth, the way she had of looking at Jo as if puzzled, and then a slow smile breaking. Langley had that same trick, back in the spring and summer of the past. He would take a long look, then smile contentedly as if an answer to a longing had come. But something else caught and held Jo Morey's attention as she watched the girl. That charm of manner, that poise and ease; how like they were to—but Jo dared not mention the name, for the hurt had broken out afresh after all the years!

"But such things do not happen in real life," she argued in her sane, honest mind. "She wouldn't have been hiding in those bushes just when I stopped to eat! I'm getting wild to fancy such things, wild!"

So Jo turned from the impossible and attacked the possible, but as often happens in life, she confused the two.

"See here, child," she said one day when Donelle was brooding and sad, "You've been very sick and you're weak yet, but while you were at the worst you remembered, and it will all come back again soon."

The girl brightened at once.

"What did I remember, Mamsey?" she asked.

Jo, weaving a new design, puckered her brow. "Oh, you told of travels with your father," then with inspiration, "they must have been in far-off places, for you spoke about high-tops white with snow and the sun making them pink. They must have been handsome."

Donelle's eyes widened and grew strained.

"Yes," she said dreamily; "they must have been handsome. But my father, Mamsey, what about my father?"

"Well, child, he died." Jo made the plunge and looked for the results.

"Yes, I think I knew he was dead. Did you know my father, Mamsey?"

Again Jo plunged.

"Yes, child, long ago. He must have been bringing you to me when something happened. Then you were ill and the Sisters took you——"

"But why did they not bring me to you?" Donelle was clinging to every word.

"I think they did not know. You forgot what had happened. Your father was dead——"

"Yes, I see. But always I was trying to get away. Many times I did get out of the gates, but always they found me until the time when I found you. Things happen very queer sometimes."

Then, quickly changing the subject;

"Mamsey, did you know my mother, too?"

"Yes, child." And now poor, honest, simple Jo Morey bent her head over the loom.

"Was she a good—mother?"

For the life of her Jo could not answer. The wide sunny eyes of the girl were upon her, the awful keenness of an awakening mind was searching her face and what lay behind her troubled eyes.

The moment of silence made the next harder; conclusions had been reached by the girl. She came toward Jo, stood before her, and laid her hands upon her shoulders,

"Mamsey," she faltered; "we will not talk about my mother if it hurts you." The quick gratitude and sympathy almost frightened Jo.

And they did not for many a year after that speak of Donelle's mother.

"But, child," Jo pleaded, "just do not push yourself, it will all come back to you some day. You must trust me as your father did. And another thing, Donelle, you are to live with me now, and—and it was your father's wish, it is best that you take my name. And you must not let on about—about—the Home at St. Michael's."

Donelle shivered.

"I will not!" she said. "Do they know where I am?"

"No. But when you are able to be left, I am going to tell them!" This came firmly. "They will be glad enough to forget you and leave the rest to me. They have great powers of forgetting and remembering, when it pays. But they are through with you, child, forever."

"Oh! Mamsey, thank God!"

Donelle folded her thin arms across her breast and swayed to and fro. This gesture of hers was characteristic. When she was glad she moved back and forth; when she was troubled she moved from side to side, holding her slim body close.

"I will mind nothing Mamsey, now. I will begin with you!"

"And I," murmured Jo gruffly, "I will begin with you, Donelle. You and I, you and I."

But of course the outside world soon had to be considered. People came to Jo Morey's door on one errand or another, but they got no further.

"I cannot make Mam'selle out," Marcel Longville confided to the Captain, "she has always been quick to answer a call when sickness was the reason. Now here is poor Tom laid up with a throat so bad that I know not what to do and when I went she opened her door but halfway and said, 'send for a doctor!'" Longville grunted. He had his suspicions about Mam'selle and Gavot, but he could get nothing definite from Pierre and surely there was nothing hopeful about Jo Morey's attitude.

"I'll call myself," he decided. But to his twice-repeated knocks he got no response; then he kicked on the door. At this Jo opened a window, risking the life and health of her begonias and geraniums by so doing.

"Well?" was all she said, but her plain, haggard face startled the Captain. He had formulated no special errand; he had trusted to developments, and this unlooked-for welcome to his advances threw him back upon a flimsy report of Tom Gavot's sore throat.

"I'm sorry, Captain," Jo said, "but I'm not able to do anything to help. There's no reason why you shouldn't get a doctor. If it's a case of money, I'll pay the bill for the sake of the poor boy and his dead mother."

"Mam'selle, you're not yourself," Longville retorted.

"I'm just myself," Jo flung back. "I've just found myself. But I'm going off for a few days, Captain, so good-bye."

Longville retreated from the house in a sadly befuddled state. Surely something serious was the matter with Jo Morey. She looked ill and acted queer, almost suspiciously queer. And she was going away! No one went away from Point of Pines unless dire necessity drove them. Why should people ever go away from anywhere unless forced?

Then Longville's thoughts drifted back to the time when Mam'selle had gone away before and came back so bedraggled and spent.

It was all very odd and unsettling.

"Surely Mam'selle needs watching," mumbled Longville and he decided to watch.

Night favoured his schemes. He forsook the tavern and made stealthy trips to the little white house, only to be greeted by blank darkness, except for a dim gleam at the edges of the curtain at the window of the small north chamber.

"Mam'selle has not yet gone," concluded Longville, but that was little comfort. Then one night he got bolder and crept close to the rear and listened under the chamber window.

Jo was talking to—— At that instant the kitchen door was flung open and out dashed Nick.

"At him!" commanded Mam'selle, standing in the panel of light, laughing diabolically, "It's a skunk, no doubt; drive him off, Nick; don't touch him!"

Longville escaped, how, he could not tell, for Nick sniffed at his retreating heels well down the highway.

Three or four nights after, Longville, discreetly keeping to the road, where he had a perfect right to be, paused before the white house again. It was a dark night, with occasional flashes of moonlight as the wind scattered the clouds.

Presently the house door opened and Mam'selle came out with Nick close beside her. They stood quite still on the little lawn, their faces turned upward. And just then Longville could have sworn he heard a sob, a deep, smothered sob, and Nick certainly whined piteously. Then the two went back into the house and Longville, with a nervous start, turned and faced—Gavot!

"What do you make of it?" whispered Pierre.

"Make of what?" demanded Longville.

"Oh, I've done some watching myself," Gavot replied, "I've watched you and her! A man doesn't keep to the night when the tavern has a warm place for him. I've kept you company, Longville, when you didn't know it."

"Well, then, what's the meaning that you make out, Pierre?"

"The Mam'selle Morey is up to—to tricks," Gavot nodded knowingly, "and she's not going to escape me."

"'Tis not the first caper she has cut," Longville snorted, "and she will well need an eye kept on her."

Then the two went amicably arm in arm to Dan's Place.

"Four eyes, brother Longville," said Gavot who always grew nauseously familiar when he dared. "Four eyes on Mam'selle and four such eyes!"

CHAPTER VI

MAM'SELLE HEARS PART OF THE TRUTH

Jo Morey came out of her house quite boldly and locked the door!

She had left Nick inside, a most unusual proceeding. Then she harnessed Molly to the caliche, also an unusual proceeding, for the picturesque carriage was reserved for the use of summer visitors and brought a good price when driven by one of the young French-Canadians from the settlement a few miles away. Openly, indeed encouraging nods and conversation, Jo started toward St. Michael's in her Sunday best and nicely poised on the high seat.

"Good morning, Captain," she greeted as she passed Longville on the road; "I'm off at last, you see! So you can take a rest from watching."

"When do you return, Mam'selle?" asked the Captain, quite taken aback by the sight.

"That depends," and Jo smiled, another rare proceeding, surely; "the roads are none too good and time is my own these days."

Then she bobbed along, the high feather on her absurd hat waving defiance.

But Jo was quite another person to young Tom Gavot whom she met a mile farther on. The boy was a handsome, shabby fellow and at present his throat was bound close in a band of red flannel. His clothing was thin and ragged and his bare hands rested upon the handle of a shovel which he held. He leaned slightly on it, as he paused to greet Mam'selle Morey.

"Tom, you've been sick," said Jo, stopping short and leaning toward him. "I hated not to come to you—but I couldn't."

"'Tis all right, now, Mam'selle. I went to the curé when my throat was the worst and the good Father took me in and sent for the doctor."

"I'll remember that, Tom, when the curé asks for help this winter. And, Tom, how goes life?"

The boy's clear, dark eyes looked troubled. "I want to get away, Mam'selle Jo. I can never make anything of myself here. Sometimes," the boy smiled grimly, "sometimes I find myself—longing to forget everything in——"

"No, Tom, not the tavern! Remember what I've always told you, boy, of the night your mother went. She said you paid for all she had suffered! Tom, when you get down and things look black, just remember and keep on being worth what she went through. It was worse than anything you'll ever be called upon to bear."

The boy's eyes dimmed.

"I'm holding close," he said grimly. "Holding close to—I don't know what."

"That's it, Tom, we don't know what; but it's something, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mam'selle."

"Now listen, Tom. How old are you? Let me see——"

"Sixteen, Mam'selle."

"To be sure. And you study hard at the school, the curé has told me. And you mend the roads in the summer with the men?"

"Yes, Mam'selle," Tom grinned, "and get a bit of money and hide it well. There's nearly twenty dollars now."

"Good! Well, Tom, this winter, study as you never have before and next summer, if the men come, work and save. You shall go away some day, that I swear. I'll promise that, but it must be a secret. You shall have your chance."

"Mam'selle!" Tom instinctively took off his hat and stood beside Jo like a ragged and forlorn knight.

"You've got to pay for all your mother suffered!" Jo's lips quivered. "It's the least you can do."

Then with a nod and a cheery farewell, Jo bobbed along while Tom Gavot returned to his self-imposed task of filling in the ruts on the road. Occasionally a traveller tossed him a coin, and the work kept him occupied, but best of all it assumed the dignity of a job and made him capable of helping intelligently when the real workers came in the late spring.

Just after midday Jo Morey drew up before the Home of St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks. She was very quiet, very dignified and firm, but her heart was pounding distractedly against her stiffly boned waist. She was to learn, at last, all there was to learn about the girl who, at that moment, was locked in the white house behind drawn shades, with instructions to remain hidden until Jo's return.

There was little doubt now in Mam'selle's mind but that the fantastic conclusions she had drawn during the strenuous hours of illness were mere figments and not to be relied upon. They could all be easily explained, no doubt.

Poor Jo!

But, no matter what she was to hear, and undoubtedly it would be most prosaic, she meant to keep the girl even if she had to threaten in order to do so! She, plain, unlovable Jo Morey, had developed a sudden and violent fancy for the girl she had rescued. Jo was almost ashamed of her emotions, but she could not, inwardly, control them. Outwardly, she might scowl and glower, but her heart beat quick at the touch of the girl's hands, her colour rose at the tones of the low voice; some women are thus moved by little children. Jo, repressed and suppressed, was like a delicate instrument upon which her own starved maternal instinct now played riotously.

She was led to the bare little reception room of the Home and left to her own devices while a small maid scurried away to summon the Sister in charge.

Alone, Jo sat on the edge of a hard chair and tried to believe that she was prepared for anything—or nothing, but all the time she was getting more and more agitated. When things were at the tensest she always looked the sternest, so when Sister Angela entered the room, she was rather taken aback by the face Mam'selle turned toward her soft greeting. Sister Angela was the older of the two nuns who had questioned Jo while the lost girl lay hidden under the straw in the cart that first day.

"Ah, it's Mam'selle Morey! A good day to you, Mam'selle."

"Have you found that girl yet?" bluntly spoke Jo.

The manner and question took the Sister off her guard.

"Oh! the girl! I remember, Mam'selle. We met you while we were looking for her. The child is quite safe, thank you. We have long wanted to find a good home for her."

"So you found her?"

Mam'selle was struggling with the fragments of French at her command and making poor work with them. The Sister pretended not to understand.

"The girl," Jo was losing what little control she had, "is over at my house; she's been terribly ill."

Sister Angela's face grew ashy and she drew her chair close. "And now?" she whispered.

"She's going to get well." Jo settled back.

"And—and she has talked? She had an illness here once, the physician told us another shock might restore her memory. That sometimes does happen. Mam'selle, the girl has remembered and—talked?"

"She's talked, yes!" Jo was groping along. "I want her story, Sister."

"What is there to tell, Mam'selle?" Sister Angela took a chance. "We always give the sinning mothers an hour in which to consider whether they will keep their children or not. We try to make them see their duty, if they will not, we assume it. And the past is dead. You know our way here, we do the best we can for the children. 'Tis wiser to forget—much."

"Sister Angela, I said the girl talked and she remembered!"

Under Jo's lowering brows the dark eyes gleamed.

"Then, Mam'selle, if the girl remembered and talked surely you can see why it was best to hush her story?"

The colour again receded from Sister Angela's face. She did not look guilty, but she looked anxious.

She had circulated a report that the missing girl was on probation in a good home; she had carried on a still hunt untiringly; and now if Mam'selle Jo Morey could be prevailed upon to adopt the girl, how perfectly everything would work out. And there was to be a meeting of the managers in a week!

"Sister, I mean to take this girl if it can be done legally and quietly, but I will not unless I hear all I can from you, all there is to know."

"Very well, Mam'selle, we only have the girl's good at heart, I assure you. Our Sister Mary was the one who brought the girl to us four years ago. I will send her to you. As to the legal steps, they are practical and easy, and when one of our fold goes to another, that is the end! We have educated this girl carefully; she is well trained. We had always her interest at heart. And now I will send Sister Mary."

Left alone again, Jo clasped her hands close and stiffened as for an ordeal.

The door opened and closed. A very pale little Sister took a chair near Mam'selle and, holding to her crucifix as to an anchor, she said gently:

"I am to tell you of the little girl, Marie. 'Tis not much of a story. We know very little, but the little were best forgot; it is not a pretty story.

"Four years ago word came from a tavern back in the hills that a man and child were very ill there and I went over to nurse them. The girl had fallen and hurt her head. She was quite out of her mind and I decided to bring her here; the doctor said she could be moved. The man, he was the father of the child, was dying. I sent for a priest and waited until the priest came.

"The man was a bit delirious and talked wildly, but at every question he hushed suddenly as if he were mortally afraid of something.

"He said he wanted no priest, insisted that he was able to start on. He was taking the child to someone who, he kept repeating, would believe him and understand.

"When I asked him what there was to believe and to whom he was taking the child, he looked at me strangely and laughed! He died before the priest came. I brought the girl away and somehow the report got around that she, too, had died, and we thought it best to let the matter rest there.

"A year later two men came to hear what we had to tell about the man who had died; he was wanted for—murder!"

To Morey sprang to her feet.

"Not—that!" she panted. Then quickly regaining her self-control, "I see now why you felt you must keep the story secret," she continued, and sank back limply in her chair.

"Exactly," nodded Sister Mary, then glanced about the room and lowered her voice.

"I told the men about the father's death—and—I said the girl had died later. Mam'selle, I took that course because one of the men, he said he had known the dead man, wanted the girl, and I could not trust the man; his eyes were bad. I feared for the child. 'Twas better that she stayed where she was, shielded, cared for. I had grown to be fond of her. I taught her carefully, she was a great help with the younger children. I hoped she would come into the Sisterhood, but perhaps it is best she should have a safe home."

"Is that all? Did those men tell you nothing of the past?" Jo's words came like hard, quick strokes.

The waxen face of Sister Mary did not change expression. She had left life's sordid problems so far behind that they were mere words to her.

"Oh! they had their story," she said. "The dead man had shot his wife because he discovered that she had a lover. He shot her in the presence of the little girl and the lover. Mam'selle, I believe the man with the officer was the lover. He wanted the child for reasons of his own; that was why I said—she was dead.

"That's all, Mam'selle."

Jo Morey felt a strange sympathy with the pale little Sister and a deep gratitude.

"You're a good woman!" she said to Sister Mary.

"I did my best for the girl," the Sister went on, still holding to her crucifix, "she never recovered her memory for that, God be praised! But she had a bright mind and I trained that carefully. She knows much from books; all that I could get for her. She never took kindly to—religion, and that is why Sister Angela was thinking of finding a home for her; the girl was not happy here, but we did our best."

"I am sure you did, Sister!" Jo looked grateful. "I understand. But those men, did they not mention the name of the man they sought?"

Sister Mary drew her brows together. "The name? Yes, but it has escaped me. It was an English name if I recall rightly, something like—Long—no—yes—it was Longley or Longdon, something sounding like that."

Never in her life had Jo fainted, but she feared she was going to do so now. The bare little room was effaced as though a huge, icy blackness engulfed it. In the darkness a clock on a shelf ticked madly, dashingly, like blow upon blow on iron.

"Here is a glass of water, Mam'selle, you are ill."

Sister Mary pressed the glass to Jo's lips and she drank it to the last drop.

"I have nursed this girl through a long sickness," she explained. "I am tired. But I will keep her. Tell Sister Angela to make arrangements and let me know."

"Very well, Mam'selle. And the girl, Marie; she remembers, Sister Angela says. 'Tis a miracle. I shall miss her, but God has been kind to her."

"She will remember only what I tell her, from now on!" Jo set her teeth over her tingling tongue. "And now, I must go."

Mam'selle almost expected to find it dark when she went out from the dim room, but it was broad daylight, and when she looked at the clock in the church tower she saw that she had been but an hour inside.

In all the years of her life she had never experienced half so much as she had during the space of time with the two Sisters. She was conscious of trying to keep what she had heard in the Home, out of her mind; she was afraid to face it in the open. There were children playing about; a Sister or two looked at her curiously; she must be alone before she dared take her terrible knowledge into consideration. Gravely she went to the caleche, stiffly she took the reins and clicked to Molly. A mile from St. Michael's, much to Molly's disgust, they turned from the main road and struck into a wood trail where the snowy slush made travel difficult. Jo did not go far, she merely wanted to hide from any chance passerby. Then she let the reins drop in her lap and staring straight ahead—thought!

It was growing cold, that dead cold that comes when the mercury is dropping. But Jo was back in the summer time of her life, she was studying Langley, and the woman who had lured him, with the mature power that suffering years had later evolved in Jo herself. By some psychic force she seemed able to follow them far, far. So far she went in imagination that she saw the "white high-tops" changing from shade to shade. Jo, who had never been fifty miles from her birthplace, went far in that hour!

She understood Langley as she never had before. She suffered with him, no longer because of him. The dreadful scene in the lonely wood-cabin; the stranger man who had told his story! And against that story who could prevail? But would Langley have been coming to her with his child had he been guilty of the crime with which he was charged? And Donelle's words: "They will believe me. Let me tell, I saw how it was."

Mam'selle, stiff with cold, smiled with rare radiance as one might who, considering her dishonoured dead, knows in her heart that he is innocent.

"If the child ever remembers, then I can speak," thought poor Jo. "I believe the man who came to the Home is the guilty one. He wanted the girl, wanted to hush her story. He must think her dead, dead, unless she can prove—the truth."

The black tragedy into which poor Mam'selle had been plunged quickened every sense. Her one determination was to hide Langley's child, not only for her own safety, but in order that the horrible story of the crime might be stilled. Langley was dead, he must rest in peace. But that man might be alive; the merest suspicion of Donelle's existence would bring about the greatest disaster. He might claim the girl, by pretending relationship, and then go to any lengths to insure her silence. No; come what might, all must be hidden.

It was dark when Mam'selle Jo reached Point of Pines. She took Molly to the stable and fed her, then silently made her way to the little house. Not a gleam of light shone from the windows; all was quiet and safe.

But was it? As Jo reached the lowest step of the porch she saw a black figure crouching under the living-room window. So absorbed was the watcher that he had not heard Jo's approach; neither did he notice when, on tiptoes, she mounted and stood behind him, the better to see what might be the object of his spying.

The shade of the broad window was lowered, but the bottom rested on the pots of flowers, and there was a space through which one might look into the room. The fire was burning brightly and its radiance clearly showed Donelle on the couch by the window, fast asleep, Nick crouching beside her, his eyes glaring at the intruder outside and his teeth showing!

"Well, Captain!"

Longville jumped up as if he had been shot. For an instant Jo had the master position, but only for an instant; then Longville spoke.

"So that's what you have been hiding!" he said.

"And this is the way you take to find out?" Jo looked dangerous. She was thinking quickly. She had meant to guard the future by safe courses, but she had little choice now. Only one thing was clear, she must save the secret she had just learned. In reaching this conclusion Jo did not consider how badly she was plunging into dangerous depths. For herself she gave no thought, her innocence and ignorance made her blind; she stood before her persecutor and answered blankly like one who must reply, and does not count the cost.

"Whose girl is that?"

"Mine."

"Yours and Langley's, by God! And you have the shamelessness to stand there and tell me so to my face. So that's what you went away for, the summer Langley turned you adrift. All these years you've kept your disgrace hidden—where?"

Horrified, Jo staggered back and confronted Longville with desperate eyes. She had meant to tell him that she had adopted the girl; had even felt she might go so far as to mention the Home, but now! What was she to do? This mean and suspicious mind had fastened on an explanation of the child's presence in her house that had not even occurred to her. No matter what she said she doubted if Longville would believe her. She stood in the dark, face to face with the Captain, while her mind battled with the question. "Shall I say the child is my own?" thought Jo. "That will stop all further questions, no one need ever know about the murder, and Donelle can be kept safe from the hateful suspicion that I——" she could not even say the horrible thing to herself.

"Answer me!" Longville, feeling that his victim feared, flung all disguise aside.

Still she stared and debated with herself. She knew that if she said that she had adopted Donelle, Longville would not believe her mere statement; she would have to bare this whole awful story to this scandal-monger; the man would expect proofs, he would ferret out the last detail. Everyone in the village would know it next day, the child would be questioned, her house would be the centre of the curious.

The other horn of the dilemma would be safer for the child; they would be let alone, she could live the evil name down. Sometime the truth would come out.

Jo had decided. She faced Longville, her head up, her jaws clamped, silent.

"Answer me—you—harlot!"

The word stung Jo Morey and she sprang forward. Longville thought she was going to strike him and like the coward he was, he dodged.

"You dare not speak for yourself," he snarled.

Then Jo laughed. The sound frightened her. She did not feel like laughing, heaven knew; but the relief of it steadied her. Then, as one does who sees a struggle is useless, she let herself go.

"Oh! yes; I can speak for myself, Captain. The girl is mine. Where I've kept her is my business, and you and I have finished business together. That—that brother-in-law of yours came after my money; was willing to marry me for it, and flung some hateful words in my face. But he set me thinking. Why should a woman do without a child because a man will have none of her, or only that which he wants? If I could not have my own in man's way, I take it in my own. I have my child, and now—what will you do? If you make my life and hers a hell here I have money and can go elsewhere. Go so far that your black words will not be heard. On the other hand, if you mind your business and leave me and mine alone, we'll stay. And now get off my property."

Longville was so utterly dumbfounded that he slunk from the porch and was in the road before he regained his self-control. Then he started back, but Jo had gone inside, locked the door noisily, and was pulling the shade down to its extreme limit!

CHAPTER VII

MARCEL TAKES HER STAND BY JO

Apparently Longville decided to mind his business, but that, he declared did not exclude Mam'selle's. Greed, curiosity, and indecision caused him to refrain from persecution. Indeed the psychology of the situation was peculiar. For the first time in her life Jo Morey became interesting. A woman with a past may, or may not be happy, but she certainly affords speculation and conjecture. Point of Pines, when it had considered Jo before, felt an amused sort of pity for her and, since she asked nothing of it, left her completely alone. But now, at this late day, she sailed into the open in such an unlooked-for manner that she inspired awe rather than the contempt or outraged scorn of Point of Pines. Without stir or fuss she simply annexed the child, and went the even gait that she had heretofore gone alone.

She was a mystery, and the men, generally in the fragrant atmosphere of Dan's Place, discussed her smartness and independence with resentment, and a—smothered—admiration! The women, especially those with whom Jo had shared hours of pain and sorrow, wondered where she had been when her own hour overtook her; whose hands had helped her who never refused help to others. And who had kept Jo's child? That question stirred in Dan's Place and in the houses roundabout.

"Perhaps some hill woman has kept the child," whispered the women over their work; but to hunt among the hills would be futile. Besides, Mam'selle's money had undoubtedly closed any lips which might be able to furnish facts.

It was a thrilling situation. One not to be despised by the lonely hamlet. Some were for, some against, Mam'selle Morey; but no one wanted, or dared, to ignore her utterly. Marcel Longville issued forth from the cloud of indecision, girded on her armour, and struck a blow for Jo Morey.

In order to make known her position, she wrapped herself in a shawl one day, and boldly walked to Jo's house in the middle of the afternoon, when several men, her husband among them, were sitting about the stove in the tavern, their faces turned to the highway.

"A woman like Mam'selle Morey can corrupt a town unless—" It was Gavot who spoke, and he sniffed disagreeably, looking down the road. Longville was watching his wife pass; he grew hot with anger, but made no reply.

"Marcel can cut her up with her tongue. It takes a woman to slash a woman," Pierre continued.

The proprietor, Dan Kelly, came to the fore. He rarely took part in conversation. He was like a big, silent, congenial Atmosphere. He pervaded his Place, but did not often materialize in conversation. Now he spoke.

"Queer, ain't it," he drawled, "how we just naturally hate to get our women mixed up? Lord knows we must have both kinds—we've fixed things that way—but when they edge toward each other we get damned religious and moral, don't we? Why?"

The words rolled around the stifling room like a bomb. Every man dodged, not knowing whether the thing was aimed at him or not, and everyone was afraid it might explode.

"Why?" continued Dan.

Then, getting no verbal answer, he went to the chair behind the bar, his throne, and became once more an Atmosphere.

But by that time Marcel was sitting in a rocker in the middle of Jo Morey's cheerful living room, watching Donelle asleep upon the couch. Jo was at her loom and both women whispered as they talked.

"I had to come, Mam'selle," said Marcel, "not because you need me or because I want to act a part, making myself better or different; it isn't that. I just want to stand a bit closer because I feel you are a good woman. I've always felt that, and my opinion hasn't changed, only I want you to know."

Jo tried not to smile; she felt she was taking of Marcel's best under false pretences. Had she been what they all thought, this neighbourly act would have bowed her with gratitude. As it was she felt a deeper sympathy for Marcel than she had ever felt, and she yearned to confide in her—but she dared not.

"Nights I get to thinking," Marcel droned on while Jo's busy fingers flew at her task, "how it was with you when she came," Marcel nodded toward the couch.

And now Jo's face twitched. How little any one guessed, or could guess, how it had been with her at the time when another woman gave birth to the girl.

"I got through somehow," she replied vaguely.

"We never get to a wall without finding an opening to crawl through, Marcel. It may be a pretty tight squeeze, but we get through."

"God knows those times are hard for a woman, Mam'selle."

"They are, bitter hard."

"And men folks don't take them into account."

"How can they, Marcel? It wouldn't be reasonable to expect it."

"It's queer, Mam'selle, how this—this thing that makes women willing to go through it, goes on and on. It means one thing to a woman; another to a man, but it seems to pay, though the Lord knows why, or how."

Jo was thinking of the subtle something that she, poor Tom Gavot, Marcel, and all the rest clung to. The thing that none of them understood.

"I'm glad you've got her!" Marcel suddenly broke in fiercely, again nodding toward the sleeping girl. "It just proves that you, Mam'selle, had the woman's reason, not the man's. That makes the difference. A woman cannot, a decent woman I mean, forgive a woman for acting like a man; casting off her young and all that, but she can understand—this! And isn't she fine and rare, Mam'selle. It's another queer thing, how many a child that comes in the straight and narrow way isn't half what it should be. Sometimes they just haven't spirit enough to stay, mine didn't, and then such children as—as yours, Mam'selle, seem to have God's blessing shining all over them."

So firmly and simply had Marcel accepted what, in reality, did not exist that poor Jo felt the uselessness of confession drawing closer and closer about her. For some days past she had been considering Marcel as a recipient for the truth, for Jo hated to accept, without some protest, the belief that she felt was spreading among her silent people. It might ease her own conscience to confide in Marcel; it might be a bit of proof in the future, but unless she told all the truth she could hardly hope to impress even the kindly Marcel, for she saw that the shabby, down-trodden woman was accepting her as the most vital and absorbing thing that had ever happened in her life. Jo, in her real self, had never inspired Marcel. Jo, in her present guise, not only claimed interest, but aroused purpose. She brought to life the struggling nobility that was inherent in Marcel but which life had never before utilized.

"I'm going to stand by her," Marcel nodded toward the couch, "by her and you—so help me God!"

Jo went to the quivering woman and laid her hand on the thin, drooping shoulder. She was mutely thanking Marcel in the name of all women who sadly needed such support.

"I'd rather have been a—a bad woman," Marcel quivered, using the term almost reverently, "and have had such as this to comfort me, than be the thing men think I ought to be, and have——" She did not finish, but Jo knew she meant those piteous little graves on the hillside.

"It don't pay to be good, Mam'selle!"

"Yes; it does, Marcel, it does." Jo's voice shook. "It pays to do your best with the things that are, as you see them. It's when we try to do what others think is good, others who haven't our problems, that we get lost. We women folks have got to blaze our own way and stick to it. No man, or man's God, is ever going to side-track me. And, Marcel, I thank you for what you came to do for me. There may be a time coming when you can serve me, and I'm sure you will. But if ever I did you a good turn, you've more than paid me back to-day."

Long after Marcel had gone to her cheerless home Jo Morey thought and thought, and as her heart grew soft her head grew hard. While her lips trembled her eyes glowed with fire, and from that moment she was able, in a strange, perplexed way, to project herself into the position that was falsely forced upon her. As she accepted it, Langley's wife was largely eliminated. It was Jo, herself, who had followed Langley to the far places; it was she who had borne and reared his child out of her great love. It was she, Jo Morey, who had stood by him, shielded him to the end, and was now determined to fill his place and her own toward the girl!—and to keep the secret! Langley had loved fine things, books, music. Jo recalled how he could fiddle and whistle, why, he could imitate any bird that sang in the summer woods. Well, somehow Donelle should have those things! Jo went later to the attic, and brought down books, long-hidden books, among them one Langley had given her because he loved some verses in it. Donelle should have learning, too. Jo meant to consult the priest about that. In short, the girl should have her chance. Poor Jo; even then she did not take into consideration the harm she was unconsciously doing the girl. She felt all-powerful. Her starved and yearning affection went out to Donelle and met no obstacle, for the girl, her health regained, was the sunniest, most grateful creature that one could imagine. No need to warn her to silence concerning St. Michael's, that experience was apparently as if it never had been.

The legal steps had been taken, and Jo was in complete control. The gates of St. Michael's were closed forever upon the girl known as Marie. She now faced the world, though she did not know it, as Mam'selle's illegitimate child.

Sometimes this fact frightened Jo, but she knew her people fairly well. The ugly belief about herself had been so silently borne that she trusted that when Donelle went among them her advent would not loose tongues. For the rest; she meant constantly to guard the girl, meant, in time, to send her away to school. Jo dreamed long dreams and, mentally keen and wise, was stupid in her ignorance of the more sordid aspects of life.

"If they'll only keep still!" she fervently hoped. And she based her present life on that.

In the meantime Donelle, in a marvellous fashion, had appropriated everything about her, Jo included. Nick was the girl's abject slave. Sometimes he'd turn his eyes on his mistress remorsefully, as he edged toward Donelle; his affections were sorely torn. The animals all learned to watch for Donelle, Molly, the horse, was foolishly sentimental. The house rang with girlish laughter and song. In the once-still rooms a constant chatter went on whenever Jo and the girl were together. Donelle, especially, had much to say and she said it in a strange, original way that set Jo thinking on many new lines.

How was she to keep this girl from knowing the truth, once she mingled with others? And how was she to keep her apart? Donelle had a passion for friendliness. To Jo, who had lived her life alone, the girl's constant desire for conversation and companionship was little less than appalling. Then, too, Donelle was a startling combination of precociousness and childishness. Her mind had been well-trained; early she had been utilized in teaching the younger children of the Home. She had absorbed all the books at her command; her imagination was ungoverned, and some of the Sisters had shared confidences with her that had added fuel to the inquisitive, bright mind.

There were times when Jo Morey felt absurdly young compared with Donelle, young and crude. Then suddenly the light would fade from the girl's face, something, probably her incapacity to go back of her life in the Home, would make her helpless, weak, and appealing.

So far, the little white house, Jo, and the animals, supplied Donelle's every need, but Mam'selle sensed complications for the future. She watched and listened while Donelle read and then enlarged romantically upon what she read; she felt lost already in the face of the problem.

"Mamsey," Donelle suddenly exclaimed one night, "I want you to take off those horrid old man-things. Let us burn them."

Jo was rigged out in her father's ancient garments; she had been to the outhouses working long and hard.

"What's the matter with them?" she asked half-guiltily.

"They're ugly and they're smelly." This was true. "Besides, they hide you and most folks wouldn't find you. They go with your scrouchy frown," here Donelle mimicked Jo's most forbidding manner, "and your tight mouth. Why, Mamsey, it took, even me, a long while to find you behind these things. I had to keep remembering how you looked while I was so sick in the long, dark nights; how you looked when you kept—It—away."

The vague look crept to Donelle's eyes, she rarely beat against the wall that hid her past. For that, Jo was hourly thankful.

"But of course now I can always find you, Mamsey. I just say to the thing you put up in front of you, 'Get out of the way' and then I see you, my kind, my dear, faithful, blessed Mamsey, shining!"

Poor Jo as a shining object was rather absurd; but the colour rose to her dark face, as it might have at the tones of a lover.

"You're a beautiful Mamsey when you don't hide. I suppose my father could find you, and that's why he wanted to bring me to you. Mamsey, did you love my father?"

Poor Jo, standing by the stove, her ugly garments steaming and hot, looked at the girl as a frightened culprit might; then she saw that the question was put from the most primitive viewpoint and so she said:

"Yes, I loved him."

"Of course. Well, now, Mamsey, will you let me burn those ugly old, smelly clothes?"

"No; but I'll put them in the attic, child."

"That's a good Mamsey. And the scowl and the tight mouth, will you put them in the attic, too?"

Jo grinned. The relaxation was something more complete than a smile.

"You're daft," was all she said, but her deep, splendid eyes met the clear, golden ones with pathetic surrender.

And then, later on toward spring, when Jo was revelling in the richness of her life and putting away the thoughts that disturbed her concerning Donelle's future, several things occurred that focussed her upon definite action.

She and the girl were sitting in the living room one evening while a soft, penetrating rain pattered against the windows.

"That rain," Jo remarked, her knitting needles clicking, "will get to the heart of things, and make them think of growing." Donelle looked up from her book. Her eyes were full of warmth and sunlight.

"You say beautiful things sometimes, Mamsey." Then quite irrelevantly, "Why doesn't any one ever come here? I should think everyone would be here all the time, other places are so ugly and other people so—so—well, so snoozy."

What Jo had feared rose to the surface. She stopped knitting and gazed helplessly at Donelle.

"At first," the girl went on musingly, "I thought there were no folks; it was so empty outdoors. Then I saw people once in a while crawling along. Why do they crawl, Mamsey? You and I don't. And then I ran around a bit, when no one was looking, and there are some horrid places, one place where only men go. It is nasty, dirty, and bad. It sort of makes all the houses seem smudgy. There was a big man at the door, and he saw me and he said, 'So you're Mam'selle Jo Morey's girl!'" just like that. And with this Donelle impersonated Dan Kelly so that his merest acquaintance would have recognized him. "And I made a very nice bow," to Jo's blank horror, Donelle showed how she had done it, "and I said 'I am, sir; and who are you?' And he put his hand in his pockets, so! and he said, 'I'm Dan, Dan Kelly, and any time you want a little chat, come to the side door. Mrs. Kelly and I will make you welcome.' And—what is the matter, Mamsey?"

For Jo's knitting had fallen to the floor, and her face was haggard.

"You—you must never go near that place again," she gasped.

"I never will, Mamsey, for the smell kept coming back to me for days and days. And the man's eyes—I saw them in my sleep, they were dirty eyes!"

"My God!" moaned Jo, but Donelle was off on another trail.

"But Mamsey, why don't we have folks in our lives. Is it because it is winter, and the roads bad?"

"Yes——" this was said doubtfully; but something had to be said.

"Well, I'm glad of that, for I love people. I even liked some of the Sisters. There was one who made me guess whenever I saw her, it was Sister Mary, she was little and pretty and had a sorry face as if she was lost and couldn't find the way out. Almost I wanted to ask her to run away with me every time I tried to do it myself. And the babies were so jolly, Mamsey. I used to play that I could make nice, happy little lives for them. There was one," Donelle's eyes dimmed, "Patsy I called her, her name was Patricia—such a big, hard name for such a cunning little tot. I fixed up a perfectly dear life for Patsy, but poor Patsy didn't seem to want any kind of a life. She'd rather lie in my arms and rock. I used to sing to her. Then she died!"

The tragedy touched Jo strangely. She had heard little of the details of Donelle's institution life; but those details, few as they were, had been vital and impressive.

"Yes, Patsy died. I missed her terribly. Oh! Mamsey, I couldn't do without folks. Why, I want to tell you something; you like to have me tell you everything, don't you, Mamsey?"

"Yes; yes." Jo took up her knitting, dropped two stitches, made an impatient remark under her breath, and caught them up. "If you didn't tell me everything I'd feel pretty bad," she went on lamely.

"Well, it's this way, Mamsey. I don't cry any more because I can't remember. I begin with you and me. You see what I don't remember is like the preface in a book; I never read it and it doesn't matter, anyway. So we begin—you and I, and everyone is supposed to know about us without telling; and the things that happened before are just helps to get us into the first chapter. Then, after that, folks come along and we don't ask them any questions, they just get mixed up with our story and on we all go until that stupid old word End, brings us up with a jolt. Mamsey, dear, I want to get all tangled with stories and stories and people and people; I want to be part of it. I'm willing to pay, you have to, all the books show that. I'll suffer and struggle along, and fall and get up again, but I must be part of it all."

Jo had drawn a full needle out, leaving all the helpless stitches gaping. "Lord!" she murmured under her breath, and at the moment decided to go to Father Mantelle on the morrow and get what help she could.

Aloud she said, quite calmly, very tenderly for her, poor soul:

"I wish you'd take that old book," it was the one Langley had given her; there was no name or date in it, "and read me some of those verses that sort of make you feel good, good and—sleepy."

"I just love this," Donelle said, quick to fall into Jo's mood:

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry

Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills.

"Why, you don't like the words? Your eyes are wet, Mamsey!"

"I'm tired, my eyes ache with the knitting and weaving. The winter always gets me." Jo was gathering up her work. "We must go to bed, child. I'm glad spring is coming and we can work in the open."

But Donelle was singing, to a tune of her own, other lines of the interrupted poem:

And my heart is like a rhyme

With the yellow and the purple keeping time.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PRIEST AND THE ROAD MENDER

The following day was warm. Jo went to the upper pasture early in the day to make plans for the spring sowing. It was a day full of promise; winter seemed almost a memory.

Donelle had been left to finish the work about the house. It should have taken her until Jo returned, but things flew through the girl's hands, she was so eager to get out of doors. She sang and gavotted with Nick who, by the way, had sneaked into hiding rather than make a choice as to whether he should follow Jo or remain with Donelle. When he came forth all responsibility was ended. He remained with Donelle!

"Nick," she said presently, "how would you like to take a walk?"

A frantic thump gave proof of Nick's feelings.

"All right, come on! We've got to find folks if folks won't find us, Nick. I'm pretty nearly starved to death for folks!"

Donelle made a wide sweep back of Dan's Place. Jo's words were in her mind, but more, the memory of Dan's "dirty eyes" warned her. She took to the woods on the river side, and was soon fascinated by the necessity of jumping from rock to rock in order to escape the mushy, mossy earth. Nick was frantic with delight. Jo never would jump or nose around among the trees where such delectable scents lurked.

Finally the two emerged on the highway a mile beyond the little cluster of houses which was Point of Pines, and nothing was in sight but a lonely, boyish figure apparently carrying mud from one place on the road and depositing it in another.

"That's an awfully funny thing to do," Donelle mused. "Maybe he's a moon calf."

Donelle had seen Marcel and Longville, had even talked with Marcel and liked her. She had heard Jo speak of others, the Gavots among them, but they were mere names to which, occasionally, Jo had added an illuminating description.

"That low-down beast, Gavot," Mam'selle had picturesquely said to Marcel once when not noticing Donelle's presence, "ought to have Tom taken from him. That boy will be driven to Dan's, if we don't look out. We ought to raise money and give the boy a start."

"I shouldn't wonder," mused Donelle, now, standing in the road and eyeing the only other figure on the landscape, "I shouldn't wonder if that was Gavot's Tom. I'll just see!" So she walked on sedately and came upon her quarry unexpectedly.

"I believe," she said, showing her teeth in a friendly smile, "I believe you must be Tom Gavot."

The boy turned abruptly, spilling as he did so the shovelful of soft earth he was carrying.

"And—you—are Mam'selle's girl!"

Tom was very handsome with a frank, appealing look that seemed to deprecate the rags and sordidness that hampered his appearance.

"Yes. What are you doing?"

"Mending the roads. And you?"

"Taking a walk on the road you mend."

They both laughed at this, Tom flinging his head back, Donelle folding her arms over her slim body.

"How did you know me?" asked Tom.

"Why—why, I heard Mamsey talk about your father."

Tom's face clouded. His father, like his rags, hampered his very thoughts.

"How did you know me?" Donelle was growing shy.

"I think maybe you won't like it if I tell you."

Tom felt very old compared to this girl in her short skirts and long, light braids. He had never felt young in his life, but he had inherited that ease and grace of manner which his father abused so.

"I should just love to hear," Donelle was fingering Nick's ears nervously.

"Well, then, I spied on you. All winter, I spied. I heard them talking about you, and I had to see for myself. I always have to know things for myself."

"So do I. But after you spied," Donelle laughed, her yellow eyes shining, "what did you think?"

"Oh! I don't know." Tom shifted his position. "I thought you were all right."

They both laughed again at that.

"Are you mostly on the roads?" Donelle asked presently. Nick was growing restless under her hands.

"Yes, when I'm not somewhere else. I fish some, and Father Mantelle teaches me and I read a lot, but I'm on the road a good deal."

"I think," Donelle beamed, "I think your Father Mantelle is going to teach me. I heard Mamsey talking about it. Does he keep school?"

"No. He's the curé. He teaches only a few. He knows everything in the world. He once lived in Quebec. He's old so they sent him here."

"Well!" Donelle suddenly turned. "I'm going now, but I shall often walk on the road." She flung this back mischievously. At a distance her shyness disappeared.

A few days later she met Tom again, this time she was more at her ease. They were young, lonely, and the spring helped thaw the superficial crust of convention.

It was after they had seen each other several times that Tom confided to Donelle his feeling about roads.

"They're like friends," he said, blushing and laughing.

"A road doesn't mean anything to me," Donelle replied, "but something to walk or ride on, something that gets you somewhere."

"Yes, it does get you somewhere, but you don't always have to ride or walk on it. If you think about it, it gets you somewhere," said Tom.

Donelle paused to whistle Nick back, the dog was after something in the bushes.

"You're very queer," she said at last eyeing Tom furtively. "Now I think about dogs and cats and birds as real, but I never thought about a road being real."

Donelle was looking at the ground as if it were something alive upon which she had stepped inadvertently.

"Tell me more about roads," she said.

"There isn't much, I've never told any one before—they would laugh."

"I will not laugh." And indeed Donelle was very serious.

"It began when I was a little chap. I didn't have much to play with and a boy has to have something. I used to wonder where the road went and when I was only five I got to the top of the hill and looked beyond. My father walloped me for running away. I wasn't really running away, but of course he wouldn't have understood, and my mother was frightened. I didn't go again for a long time. I was always a bit of a coward and I remembered the whipping."

"I don't believe you are a coward, Tom Gavot."

"I am, a little. You see, I hate to be hurt, I sort of—dread it, but once I make the start, I forget and go on like everyone else."

"I think that's being braver than most people. If you are afraid and still do things, that's not cowardly." Donelle spoke loyally and Tom gave her a long side glance of gratitude.

The spring was in Tom's blood, this lately-come friend was developing him rapidly.

"Well, anyway, by the time I was seven I managed the hill again. From that time on I went every day. I think there must be a dent in a rock where I used to sit, playing with the road."

"Playing with the road! Playing with the road!" Donelle repeated. "Oh! but you are queer. What did you play, Tom Gavot?"

"Oh! I sent people up and down it. The people I did not like I sent down and never let them come back."

"That is perfectly lovely. Go on, Tom."

"And then I made up my mind that when I was big enough I'd run away with my mother. I always meant to explain to her about the road, but I didn't. Sometimes I fancied that people would come over the road bringing to me the things I wanted."

"What things, Tom?"

"Oh! all sorts of things that boys want and don't get. After I grew older and Father Mantelle began to teach me, I still felt as if the road was a friend, but I did not play with it any more. Then one summer some surveyors and engineers came and one man, he was a great sort, let me talk to him and he made me think about roads in quite another way. I tell you, my road had got pretty rutty, so I began filling in the holes. It was the only decent thing I could do when I'd used it so; and besides it kept me near the men and they helped me to know things that I really wanted."

"What, Tom Gavot?"

"Why, I want to learn how to make roads. When I can, I am going away and I'm not coming back until I can do more than fill in holes."

"I shall miss you dreadfully when you go!" said Donelle. It all seemed imminent and real to her now. "Of course you must go, but—well, the road will be pretty lonely until you come back." Then the girl looked up.

"I sort of feel," she said whimsically, "that I ought to be the right kind—of a girl to walk on your road, Tom Gavot."

"Well, you are."

"No, I haven't told Mamsey that I know you. I've come with Nick when Mamsey was off on the farm. She thinks I'm spinning or weaving, but I hurry through and get out. I've hoped that someone would tell her, but they haven't."

"Would she mind if she knew?" asked Tom, and his dark face reddened.

"I don't know, but I think I must think she would or I would have told. She and I talk of everything right out; everything but you."

For a moment the two walked on in silence. Then Tom spoke.

"You'd better tell her," he said. Then with a brave attempt at cheerfulness: "When I come back, Donelle, all the world can see us walking on the road and it won't matter."

"I'm going to tell Mamsey to-day," murmured Donelle. Somehow she felt as if she had wronged Tom. "This very day."

Gavot looked into her face. He suddenly felt old and detached as if he had got a long way ahead of her on the road.

"Your eyes are a strange colour," he said, "they look as if there was a light behind them shining through."

They both laughed at that, and then Donelle whistled Nick to her and turned.

"I'm going to tell Mamsey," she said, "good bye."

Tom looked after her and his eyes grew hard and lonely.

"Good-bye," he repeated. "Good-bye," but the girl was out of sight.

That afternoon she told Jo, but she advanced toward her confession by so indirect a route that she mislead Mam'selle.

"I wish you'd tell me about Tom Gavot," she said.

"Why? What does Tom matter? Poor lad, he's got a beast of a father."

"Was his mother a beast?"

"No. She was a sad, hunted soul."

"It is too bad she died, if she had waited Tom would have taken her on his road."

Jo looked up from her sewing.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Tom Gavot. He used to play with the road and now he mends it. Some day he's going to make roads. They'll be splendid roads, I'm sure, and——"

"What do you know of Tom Gavot, Donelle?"

Jo started as she had when Donelle had told her of Dan Kelly.

"Mamsey, don't be angry, I know I should have told you. I don't know why I didn't, but while you were away I hurried and got through my work and then I was so lonely. I went out on the road—Nick and I, and I found Tom Gavot."

"You've seen him—often?"

And now Jo's eyes were stern and frightened.

"Why, yes, I suppose so. I didn't count. It seems as if I had always known him. He's wonderful. Besides knowing about roads, he knows books, all kinds. Father Mantelle teaches him. I'd like to go, too, and learn from Father Mantelle."

"Well, you'll not study with Tom Gavot!" Jo was perplexed. She decided to go the very next day to the priest.

"Why not, Mamsey?"

"One sort of learning for girls; another for boys." Jo snapped her thread.

"I wonder why, Mamsey! They both travel the same road."

The word made Jo nervous.

"No, they do not!" she said sharply.

"Well, I shall. You can choose your road, can't you, Mamsey? I mean the sort of things you learn?"

"No."

"It's all wrong then."

"Stop asking stupid questions, child, about things you do not know," Jo broke in.

"But that's why I ask questions, because I don't know. Are they stupid?"

"Yes, very. Now come, Donelle, and help me get supper."

It was mid-afternoon of the next day when Jo started for Father Mantelle's. Her errand was a very simple one: she wanted the old man to teach Donelle. Not while he was instructing Tom Gavot, however!

As she walked along the muddy road, picking her way as she could, Jo was thinking of how much or how little she should tell of her relations with Donelle. She had grown to accept what she felt people believed and it no longer caused her indignation; there were graver problems. But the incident that Donelle had related of her conversation with Dan Kelly had thoroughly aroused her. Her consciousness of injustice could not save her from the shock of the brutal meaning of Dan's attitude.

"They'll get to think the girl's common property if I don't set her above their reach," muttered Jo, and then wondered whether it would be safer to lay the truth bare to Father Mantelle. Would it be safer for Donelle to come forth in her true character, as the daughter of a supposed murderer, or to remain as she was, the supposed love-child of a deserted woman? For herself Jo Morey took little heed; the self-respect that had always upheld her came to her support now. Had Donelle been hers, she believed her inheritance would have been better than that which was rightfully hers from her real mother.

"A minister's words can't make or mar these things," she muttered, "and since my blood doesn't flow in the girl's veins, my common sense can save her, God helping me!"

As she plodded on poor Jo thought of Langley himself. She had never believed the accusation brought against him. She could not, but what proof had she to support her belief? And somewhere, in the world, possibly, that man was still alive who had brought forth the charge. Might he not at this late day materialize and menace Donelle were she, Jo, to let the full light of truth on her?

What reason was there for that strange man to want to get possession of Langley's child? Was he afraid of her? Did he want to silence her, or—and here poor Jo stopped in the road and breathed hard—had he believed that Donelle was his?

For a moment Jo grew dizzy. Suppose he did think so. How could she prove the contrary? Would her insistence as to resemblance or her innate belief in her love going true, weigh against any proof which that unknown man might have?

Less and less did Jo believe that Donelle would ever recall the past. And if she did, what would it avail?

"I think I will have to let the poor child stagger along with me tacked to her past," she concluded, "her chances for safety are better, though she may never know it. I may be able to keep her from hearing, people do forget, and my money and her learning may help." Jo sighed and trudged on.

The relations between Father Mantelle and Mam'selle were very peculiar. The old priest admired her intelligence and was amused by her keen wit and independence. He simply could not account for her and that added to his interest. He had not been in Point of Pines long, he rarely left it, and never had company unless a passing father stopped for refreshment or a report. In short, Mantelle was as much a mystery as Mam'selle, and for that very reason they unconsciously respected each other.

They never discussed religion, but Mantelle's attitude toward Jo had been always one of esteem and neighbourliness.

"In loneliness the poor soul has worked out her own redemption," Mantelle had decided. At first he had pondered upon Mam'selle's loneliness, but had never questioned it, having much sympathy for any one who, for any reason, could not mingle freely with his fellows.

When Jo entered the priest's house his servant, an old Indian woman, showed her to a rear room in which she had never been before.

It surprised Jo by its comfort and even luxury. Books lined the walls, rugs covered the rude board flooring; there were comfortable chairs, broad tables, and a clear fire burning on the spotless hearth.

The old man sat before the fire, and as he looked up and saw Jo his delicate face flushed. Something in his manner caught her attention at once. Subtle as it was, she was keenly sensitive of it.

"He's heard!" thought Jo, and stiffened.

Father Mantelle had heard and he thought, he certainly hoped, that the erring daughter had come to confess. It was not in the church, but that did not matter; more was dragged out of heavily-burdened souls in that comfortable room than was ever got in the small church on the hill.

The priest meant to be very kind, very tolerant; he knew the world outside Point of Pines and was extremely human when men and women deserved his kindness. But until they were brought to the proper state of mind, mercy must be withheld, and this disclosure of Jo's past had shaken him tremendously. Certainly whatever he had thought about her, he had not thought this! He felt that he, in his office and character, had been grossly deceived. He had been permitted to associate on equal terms with a woman outside the pale. It was outrageous.

Something intangible, but strangely like Dan Kelly's manner toward Donelle, marked Mantelle's attitude at the present moment. A half-concealed familiarity, an assumption of authority.

"Well, well, you have come, daughter," he said, and pointed Jo to the chair across the hearth. He thought Jo had been driven to him in her extremity, he had never addressed her as "daughter" before.

"Father," Jo began bluntly, "I've come to ask your help with this young girl I've adopted."

The priest thought Mam'selle hard. Indeed Longville had told him, in strict privacy, that she was hard and defiant. For the good of her own soul and the soul of other women likely to defy the laws of God and man, she must be brought to a repentant state. Now that he understood conditions, Mantelle was prepared to reduce Jo to that desirable state. He smiled kindly, blandly; he was a bit daunted but he realized that, erring as Mam'selle was, she was no ordinary woman.

He kindly led her on.

"Though you have seen your duty late, daughter," he said gently, "there is still time to strive for the child's best good."

Then Jo told him quite concisely of her desires for Donelle.

"I want to have her learn all that you can teach her, Father," she said, "and after that—well, I have no plans, but my money and life will be devoted to the girl."

There was a suspicion of defiance and bitterness in Mam'selle's tone.

Now Mantelle had only seen Jo's adopted daughter at a distance. Having no authority over the parish of St. Michael's he had not connected the girl's past with the institution there. He had asked Longville whence Mam'selle Morey had brought the girl, but as Longville did not know, he had let the matter drop as non-essential, but it puzzled him.

"You think it wise to keep the child in Point of Pines?" he asked. "You think it for her good, after all these years, to—to bring the unfortunate past to the—the surface?"

"Yes," Jo answered and her lips drew close. She was thinking of Dan Kelly, but she believed Father Mantelle and she could outwit him.

"My daughter, do you think this would be fair to the girl?"

"Why not?"

"Is it right, or just, that she should suffer for the wrong of a—another?"

"No, it is not right." Jo said this as a general truth.

"But you think your money can buy favour? Mam'selle, you are wrong. There are some things money, not even years of blameless life, can buy.

"Your people, I am sure, have treated you kindly, compassionately, and they will continue to do so, if you show the proper spirit. But you must not, daughter, think that gold can wipe away the result of defiance to the laws of God and man. You must be repentant, prove that you have the best interests of this girl at heart, and then, then only can the future be secure."

The thin, delicate face was pale and stern, the deep eyes burned. Not only the sanctity of Mantelle's authority, but his position among men was being questioned by the woman before him. And Jo was defiant, there was no doubt about that.

"Your kind heart, daughter, has betrayed you into error. Before bringing this child here you should have consulted me. Much might have been saved for us all."

"What would you have advised?" Mam'selle dropped her eyes and the forbidding brows seemed to hide every kindly expression of her face.

"I should have strongly advised against letting the innocent suffer for the guilty!" Mantelle's voice was stern.

"Yes, but she had to have a home; care, the best possible."

"To give that, daughter, is not in your power. In violating the most sacred emotions of life, in spurning the very safeguards of society, you put yourself outside the pale, as far as the child's best good is concerned. Women should fully understand this before they take the fatal step. The price must be paid! If, by assuming your duty at this late day you could condone the past, I would help you, but I cannot advise keeping this girl here. For her truest good, she should be saved, where only such unfortunates can be saved."

"And that is?" Mam'selle's voice was slow and even.

"In the bosom of the church, daughter. Send the child to St. Michael's; let them train her there for a life of devotion and service in a field where temptation, inherited weakness——"

Mantelle got no further for Jo—laughed!

The priest rose in his chair, white with anger.

"You laugh?" he said as if his hearing had betrayed him.

"Forgive me, Father, but it struck me as being rather hard on the girl that, for a wrong she never committed, she should be condemned to—to exile; not even given a chance of her own."

"You stole that from her, daughter!"

"I? Why, how could I? And is the Church able to accept whatever service, my—this young girl might give, while the world is unable to do so?"

"It can."

Then Mam'selle stood up. Her patient, work-worn hands were folded before her, she raised her deep, sad eyes.

"Father," she said calmly, "you feel that you have a right to assume this attitude toward me, without even hearing my side? My life, as you know it, has done nothing to save me from this—this mistake of yours. You have taken my money, what help I could give, and I believed that you were my friend."

"I am; your real and only friend." Mantelle was deceived by the tone and words.

"You have shown me that a man cannot be a friend to a woman! He cannot give her justice."

"You are not speaking to a man, daughter!"

The desire to laugh again consumed Jo, but she mastered it.

"In that capacity alone did I regard you, Father Mantelle, and you have failed me. For the rest, I let no one stand between my conscience and my God! No. If I ask help again it will be from a woman; she at least can understand."

"A woman is hardest upon women in such cases as yours, Mam'selle!"

Jo was thankful that at last the priest had dropped the objectionable "daughter."

"She will be the first who will turn against you."

"And was it a woman who came to you, Father, with my—my trouble?"

Mantelle's face flushed and Jo shook her head sadly.

"I see it was not. So the first and second who have turned against me have been men. Good day, Father, and"—Mam'selle stopped at the door—"if you ever need help in giving that poor Tom Gavot his chance, I stand ready to do what I have always promised to do, and I do it for the sake of his mother."

Condemnation and contempt rang in Jo's voice. It was her last arrow and it sank home.

The priest was practical and having done his Christian duty he could afford to be human.

"It speaks well for your good sense, Mam'selle," he said; "that you do not utterly shut yourself away from your people." Then Mantelle paused, "Mam'selle!" he said.

"Yes, Father." Jo turned and lifted her deep eyes to his face.

"I wonder if you have something to tell me that I should know in justice to you?"

"You should have thought of that first, Father. It is too late now."

"We may"—the man's recent manner fell from him like an unnecessary garment—"be friends, still?"

Again Jo laughed. She felt that she had by some kindly power regained something of her lost position with this lonely old man. Since he could not understand her, save her, he was willing to accept her.

"Father, I have too few friends to cast them off heedlessly."

And then she went out, more of a mystery than ever to Mantelle.

CHAPTER IX

WOMAN AND WOMAN

It was early June when Mam'selle heard that the Walled House, the country place of some rich people from the States, was to be opened.

It had been closed for many years, but recently the master had died and his wife, with a staff of servants and an old, blind, white-haired man, had returned.

The moment Jo heard that, her spirits rose. Here was a most unlooked-for opportunity for advice and, perhaps, assistance.

The Lindsays of the Walled House had always mingled freely with their neighbours; Mr. Lindsay was a Canadian. Jo, in her earlier days, had often served them; had sold her linens and wools to them at, what seemed to her, fabulous prices. Mrs. Lindsay, having taken a fancy to Mam'selle, often tried to annex her to her establishment, but to that the independent Jo would not consent.

"Well, Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay had said during the last interview they had had, "if I ever can help you, please let me."

"I'll go to her now!" decided Mam'selle.

A week later, dressed in her absurd best, she made the journey in her caliche. Her days of sitting on the shaft by Molly, her economies in clothes, were over, she was living up to her ambitions for Donelle and her defiance of Point of Pines' morality. Outwardly, Jo was fairly awe-inspiring and even Dan Kelly was impressed; inwardly, Jo was a good deal chastened by her visit to Father Mantelle.

There were doubts now in her heart as to the role she had assumed for Donelle's sake. Perhaps it would be better to let the girl shoulder her father's possible crime and her foolish mother's wrongdoing, rather than the disguise which Jo had self-sacrificingly wrought for her.

And yet, even now she could not bring herself to lay the dead Langley open to a charge she did not believe, but could not disprove, and the girl, herself, to danger. And so as she drove to the Walled House she was very quiet, very subdued, but her faith was strong. She meant to give as much as she dared of the past to the woman whose sympathies and assistance she was about to interest. She was ready to put all her future wools and linens at Mrs. Lindsay's disposal in return for any help she could obtain for the betterment of Donelle. Poor Jo was ready to abdicate, if that were best. After her months of happiness with the girl, after living in the dear companionship and love of the sunny young nature, she was willing to stand aside for the girl's future good.

"She shall not be condemned to death!" Jo snorted, and Molly reared. "St. Michael's shall not get her. But there must be a place for her, and I love her well enough to get out of her way. I only took her for the best, her best, and if I cannot keep her, I can let her go!"

Jo found Mrs. Lindsay on the beautiful shaded porch, found her changed, but none the less lovely and kindly.

"Why, it is the dear Mam'selle of the wonderful linens!" Alice Lindsay cried, stretching out her slim hands in welcome. "I have been thinking of you. How glad I am to see you. You have heard?" Mrs. Lindsay looked down at the thin black gown she wore.

"I have heard," Jo said and her throat grew dry.

"I—I have come back because my husband seems more here than anywhere, now. He loved the Walled House so much; he loved his Canada, Mam'selle."

Jo was thinking of two bleak, lonely weeks in her own past when she had stolen away and gone to Langley's deserted cabin because he, the he that she had known and loved—seemed more there than anywhere else. She had buried her hatred and bitterness toward him there. She knew it, now, as she had never known it before. The two women were drawing close by currents of sympathy.

They had tea together, they talked of future linens and wools, and then Jo told her story, taking small heed of the impression she was giving. She was blindly thinking only of Donelle, and Mrs. Lindsay did not hurt her by question or voiced doubt.

That night, when a great silence reigned over the Walled House, broken only by the soft, tender tones of a violin played at a distance in the moonlit garden, Alice Lindsay wrote a long letter to Anderson Law, her father's oldest friend, her own faithful advisor and closest confidant.

Law was an artist and critic. Old Testy he was called by those whom he often saved from the folly of their false ambitions; The Final Test, by those who came humbly, tremblingly, faithfully to him with their great hopes. To a few he was Man-Andy, the name that Alice Lindsay had given to him when she was a little child.

MAN-ANDY: I have had a wonderful day. I have waited to tell you that your advice as to my coming here was good. I know it is cowardly to run away from one's troubles, dear. Troubles, as you say, have their divine lessons, but I could not believe, at first, that I would find Jack here. I dreaded the emptiness and loneliness, but you were right, right! I am not desolate here and I have the blessed feeling of peace that can only come when one has chosen the right course.

I felt that everything worth while had been taken: Jack, my babies. Only the money remained, and that I hated, because it could not keep what I wanted. But you were splendid when you said, "make the thing you despise a blessing!" I've tried, Man-Andy, to make it a blessing to others, and it is becoming a blessing to me. I feel I am using it for Jack and for the babies and that they are making it sacred. I feared that in this big, empty house the ghosts would haunt me; not the strange old history ghosts of great ladies and dashing men who used to forget their homesickness for their mother-countries by revelling in this shelter in the New World. I did not think of them, for do you not remember Jack's comical ghost hunts? How he joked about it, saying that he'd yet lure some old English or French aristocrat to stay and sanctify our presence by his sponsorship? But oh! I did fear the memories of my man's dear, jovial ways, the pretty babble of my little babies.

And then—I know I am rambling shamefully, but I cannot sleep, the moonlight is flooding the garden—I hear Professor Revelle's violin. Andy, he has actually recovered to the extent of music when he thinks I do not know. As I look at the dear old soul, so like a gentle wraith, I remember how you and father and Jack adored his music and how Jack grieved when illness and poverty stilled it. But you found him, Man-Andy, and you lent him to me to save, and his music at least has been given back to him. Not with its old fire and passion—I think if any demand were made upon him he might be aroused. I may take lessons myself some day. But he plays dreamily, softly when he is alone, generally in the garden and at night. He forgets his blindness then.

But to-day I had a caller. I wonder if you remember the nice Mam'selle Jo Morey that Jack and I used to talk about? You have some of her linens in your studio. You may recall the incident of the summer when we told you of her troubles; her desertion by a man of the place and the death of her imbecile sister? I had almost forgotten it myself, so much has happened since then, but it all came back to me to-day when she came with her story.

Andy, her story is quite the most tragic a woman can have; such things happen even here. She did not cringe or whine, I would have hated her if she had; you know how I feel about such things. My Mam'selle Jo does not whine!

There was a child, and now that Mam'selle can afford to do well by it, she has taken it. She has done this so quietly and simply that it has shocked the breath out of the very moral Point of Pines. Still, before the breath left the body of the hamlet, it hissed! And when it recovers its breath it is going to hound this poor Mam'selle, whose shoes it is not worthy to touch. It's going to hound and snarl and snap, two of its inhabitants have done it already, and the Mam'selle Morey is not going to have her child harried for what she is innocent of!

Isn't this a situation?

The Mam'selle knows her world, however, and all worlds are pretty much alike, Andy, and she is prepared, in exchange for her child's happiness, to renounce her! It almost broke my heart as she told me; she saw no other way and she fiercely demands that justice be shown the girl. I tell you it takes the fine, large courage to renounce, when love tempts. Mam'selle loves this child as such children often are loved, passionately because they cost so much.

And this Mam'selle Morey came to me. She felt I could understand, advise. Well, I do understand because of Jack's attitude toward such things, and yours and father's. Thank God, the men I have known have helped me uphold my standard, and I understand because of my dear, dear babies, who left so much of themselves with me when they had to go away.

I grew hot and cold as I listened, Man-Andy, and I grew puffed up and chesty, too. How I gloried, for the moment, in my power. It's all right to have power if you keep it in its proper place.

I kept saying to myself, "Mam'selle, you and I will win out! And you shall not be the sacrifice, either! Together we can play the game; two women ought to be able to see that one innocent child has its rights!"

Man-Andy, I rolled up my sleeves, then and there, and that dear old poem you love came to my mind, it often does; that one about tears:

By every cup of sorrow that ye had

Loose us from tears and make us see aright

How each hath back what once he stayed to weep

Homer, his sight; David, his little lad?

I thought of dear old blind Revelle; he has something back, even though much is withheld. He has safety, and his fiddle. And then I vowed that this brave, strong Mam'selle Morey should have her little lass. She shall not be taken from her; I will help, and give the girl her chance, I am quite fierce about it. And my Mam'selle shall keep her in the end, somehow I'll manage that. With other things, this girl shall get a comprehension of—her mother!

Man-Andy, tell me what you think of all this and tell me of yourself; of the Norvals, and the rest of the folks I love but do not need just now. And tell me of your sad duty, dear man. Do you go every week to the Lonely Place? Some day, when it is all past, you will come here to this Walled House. You and I will go out on the highway and kneel under one of the tall black and white-tipped crosses and give thanks! Man-Andy, to-night I can give thanks that I am being used, that the power my money can give is being used, and that I am not left to my tears.

To this long outpouring of the heart Anderson Law replied within the month.

MY GIRL: you have only proved yourself. It took a little time, but I knew you were not the sort to hide your face and run. Revelle and his fiddle are about the best combination I know, I certainly hadn't counted on the fiddle. I thought with care and safety he'd find peace and I knew he would be good for you; but I feared his blindness would kill his music.

It's a great thing, too, girl, that your children did not shut the door of your motherhood when they went out. You'd hardly have been worthy of them if you had not learned the lesson they taught.

As for us here: Jim Norval is doing some good things in his moments of genius. When plain talent grips him, he's not so good. Katherine, from perfectly exalted motives, is driving him to hell. It's the most puzzling situation I ever saw. You cannot advise a man to leave a high-natured, moral, devoted wife just because she's pushing him to perdition and depriving him of his birthright, but that's the situation in the Norval family. Their child somehow did not get its lesson over!

The Lonely House still holds my duty, but if the time ever comes when I can stand beside you under the cross, there will be many things, hard to bear now, that will then make thanks possible. ANDY.

Law's letter came after Donelle had entered the Walled House where she was to stay from Monday till Friday of each week. The week-ends belonged to Mam'selle Jo!

"For awhile, Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay had said, holding Jo's hands as she had made plain her understanding, "I will teach the child myself and learn to know her. We need not plan far ahead. There is a dear, old, blind musician living with me; if the girl has any inclination for music, she will be a god-send to him."

"I am sure she will have, Mrs. Lindsay," Jo's plain face was radiant, "her father had, and she sings the day through."

"You must bring her at once, Mam'selle, and believe me, whatever comes or does not come, she will always be yours. She is your recompense."

And within the week Donelle Morey came to the Walled House.

Her entrance was dramatic and made a deep impression upon Mrs. Lindsay.

There had been a struggle between Jo and Donelle before the matter had been arranged, so, while not sullen, the girl was decidedly on guard.

Propelled by Jo she came into the great, sunny hall. She was very pale and her yellow eyes were wide and alert.

"My dear," Alice Lindsay had said, "I hope you are going to be very happy here."

"I did not come to be happy, I came to learn," Donelle returned, and her voice saved the words from rudeness.

"Perhaps you can be both, dear," but Donelle looked her doubts.

Still from the first she played her part courageously. She studied diligently and, when she was given the freedom of the library, she showed a keen and vital interest.

She was not indifferent, either, to the kindness and consideration shown her, but the wildness in her blood reasserted itself and she often felt, as she had felt at St. Michael's, a desire to fly from restraint; even this kindly restraint. Point of Pines had given her a sense of liberty that was now lacking. The refinements and richness of the Walled House oppressed her, she yearned for Jo, for the hard, unlovely tasks, for the chance talks with Tom Gavot. But, oddly enough, it was the thought of Tom that kept her to her duty. Somehow she dared not run away and hope to keep his approval. Something of her struggle Alice Lindsay saw, and she considered it seriously. To win the girl wholly from her yearnings just then might mean winning her from Mam'selle. While not a child, Donelle was very unformed and might easily, if she were conquered, be lost to Jo whom she regarded simply in the light of an adopted guardian. She was grateful, she loved Jo, but the secret tie that Alice Lindsay believed existed held no part in her thoughts.

"But she shall be saved for Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay vowed. "I will not permit any other solution. If the time ever comes when she understands she shall know the splendour of this dear soul."

So Alice Lindsay took Jo into her confidence.

"You must not, Mam'selle," she said, "even think yourself renouncing her. She is yours and you ought not to forget that, nor deprive her of yourself. Take things for granted; let her see you as I see you!"

Jo's face twitched.

"There's no earthly reason," Alice Lindsay went on, "for blotting you out. Why, the girl will never know another woman as fine as you, Mam'selle. Think of how you have studied and thought yourself into a place that many a woman with untold advantages has not attained!"

"Donelle's father was a scholar," Jo faltered, not knowing how to act in the strained moment. "He taught me, not only books, but how to think."

"Yes, and to suffer, Mam'selle," Alice Lindsay controlled her true emotions. Then:

"Mam'selle, Donelle must learn to appreciate her inheritance from you. She shall, she shall! Now throw off your usual manner with her; let her see you!"

"She always has, Mrs. Lindsay."

"Very well, don't let go of her now!"

And so Jo permitted herself the luxury of doing what her heart longed to do, she put off her guarded manner and played for the first time in her life.