sn't that what you wanted?"

"I do not mean the dress--there is something else."

"So there is--but it came with the dress. Perhaps you--did not order
that--well, then, it must be _your_ part of the surprise. Don't you
remember that story you read to me once--about the mantle of Elijah? You
know it made the humble wearer--great. Well, these pretty things,"--she
touched them lightly--"they make me--a woman. The sort of woman who
must--ask questions--and get answers--true answers."

"Why, don't you trust--me?"

The pained question was wrung from Gaston's lips. The steady look from
the big eyes went strangely to his heart.

"I--do--not know--you--as you--are now," she said firmly.

"It is not I who am changed, Joyce, it is you. Everything is just the
same except that I see you are more--wonderful than I dreamed."

"Nothing is going to be the same again. I knew it while Mr. Drew was
talking the other day--I have thought it all out since."

"Curse him!" Gaston broke in; "what did he say? Why did you go to him
Joyce? How could you?"

There was pain in the words--pain and a dumb fear.

"It only happened to be Mr. Drew. Some one would have made me know in
time."

"Joyce;" he was actually pleading with her! The knowledge burnt into the
quickening soul. "Joyce, what did you trust in me, before you went to
Drew?"

"Your goodness--your--unselfishness. I knew the goodness--I have only
begun to see the--unselfishness."

"My unselfishness? Good heavens!" In spite of the strangeness of it all,
Gaston laughed. Then an impatience stifled him. A brute instinct drove
him on. Her beauty had captured his senses, and he meant to tear down
the pitiful wall he had upbuilded between her and him, and force her to
see the inevitable.

He had wondered if she could stir him--well he knew now. What idiots
they had both been!

He was through with the Past forever. The Past that had held him to a
false ideal. There should be no more imbecile philosophy in the North
Woods as far as he and she were concerned.

"See here," he began, and his voice was almost hard; "don't you know
when I shut you away from what you knew as danger--Jude and all the rest
of the hell that went with him--I shut you away from what people--people
like Drew and his set--know as mercy?"

Joyce's eyes widened, but she did not speak. Gaston rushed on--he wanted
the scene over. She was too heavenly beautiful sitting there, he must
bring her closer.

"They would