"No." "Then for God's sake take half!" He was pleading, pleading with a woman for the first time in his selfish, depraved life. Joyce turned and looked at him, and the tears filled her eyes. "No," she repeated, "I--I couldn't take it. I don't want it; but I'm going to Isa Tate, father." How frightfully still and lonely she had left the little house. Jared looked at the old furniture and found it strange and unnatural. The summer day grew dim as he waited there among the ruins of all that he thought had been his own. No dinner; no probable supper--Jared thought upon the physical discomfort, too, but he was sober enough, and shocked enough to give heed to the graver side of the situation. What he suffered as the afternoon faded and the ticking of the clock thudded on his senses, no one could ever know. We may leave retribution for sin out of our scheme of things-as-they-should-be for others. Each sin takes care of itself, and burns and blisters as it strikes in. Men may suffer without giving outward sign. Justice is never cheated, and we may trust her workings alone. Jared suffered. Suffered until nerves and body could bear no more, and then he went down to the Black Cat to face the situation Joyce had created and deal with it in his own fashion. CHAPTER IV When Joyce went with bowed head from the only semblance of a home that had ever been hers, she carried with her, in the rough basket, all that she could rightfully call her own in personal effects. The load was not heavy and she scarcely noticed it as she walked rapidly through the maple thicket which divided her father's garden-place and the Long Meadow. She felt like an exile, indeed. A friendless creature who had no real hold upon any one. She thought of Gaston--but he no longer suggested safety to her. She thought of Lauzoon, and a wave of fear and repulsion swept over her. She knew she was driven to him. She knew she must accept whatever fate he offered, but with the remnant of her intuitive belief in her personal charm and beauty, she paused at the edge of the wood, to plan some sort of attitude that would secure Jude's admiration as well as his protection. She must not call upon him in a moment of weakness and defeat. That would be putting a weapon in his hand that no St. Ange man could be trusted to wield mercifully. She must hide all traces of outraged feeling; she must find a vantage point from which Jude might take her. He must come to her; she must not go to him. Thus she pondered. For one wild instant she turned her face toward Hillcrest. There were those over the hill who might give her work--what work? What could she do? But granting that she obtained work, how long could she retain a position, with her father and Jude in pursuit? No; she was a product of St. Ange and had all the faltering distrust of other environments common to the shrinking childhood of the poor village.