Joyce flinched before the tone. Gaston stood up and flung his arms out. "No! by God, I would not live abroad. I chose my own place of hiding. He paid, though--I saw to that--he named no allowance, it was I; but he paid and paid and paid all that _I_ thought he should. He bought me off at my price--not his. I left all in the hands of the only friend I had on earth--I never wanted to hear of the others again until I was ready to go back--and I haven't. I wanted time to think out my way. I wanted strength to go back, take my name and fortune, ask nothing of the world--but a chance to defy it. I got as far as that--" He dropped back into the chair and bowed his head. The hands of the clock were past midnight, the fire was nothing but glowing embers; a chill was creeping through the room. Presently Gaston was aware of a nearness--not merely bodily, but spiritually. He looked up. He had forgotten Joyce and his thought of comfort in knowing that she would stand by him. To see her close now, to gaze up into her glorious face was like an awakening from a hideous dream to a safe reality. "You got as far as that," she said in the saddest, softest tone that a woman's voice ever held; "and then I came into your life. Oh! how hard you tried to set me aside with Jude--but again and again I returned to--hold you back." "Why, Joyce, what is the matter?" A paralyzing fear drove anguish before it. Gaston strove to recall passion, but that, too, had deserted. He and Joyce were standing in a barren place alone--nothing behind, nothing before! "Can't you see what is the matter?" The coquetry had left the girl, she stood fair, cold and passive like some wonderful goddess. "Don't you think I see it all now? "When I came out of that room I was a--bad woman! You were mistaken, I never understood before--about us! "You see when--when I came to you that night--after Jude--" she struggled with her trembling--"I did not know such men as you--lived. I was what Jude and St. Ange had made me. I was afraid of you--but," she bent over him in divine pity pressing her wet cheek to his bowed head; "but I grew to know! You were far, far above me, I soon saw how far. You never thought about it, but it made it safe for you to help me. I can see it all so plain now. "Then the evil that was in me, the evil that some might have made so vile, slipped away. I tried hard to be what you wanted me to be for my own sake. You did not think of the past and I tried to forget it, too; and so we came along to this night. "In that room"--she looked quiveringly at the closed door--"for a moment, I misunderstood again. I thought you were trifling with me. I think I felt for the first time that perhaps I was _not_ what I had been--when I came out of the old life! I wanted to make sure, and I stooped to the meanest way." Gaston drew her close. Vaguely he feared that she was slipping farther and farther from him for all her sweetness and nearness.