"Joyce!" At last the real clutched the unreal. The girl, for the first time, was conscious of the biting cold. She shivered and seemed to travel back to that rough call over frozen distances. With stiff fingers she drew the heavy wooden shutters together and lowered the sash. Then feeling her way with outstretched hands, like a bewildered child, she made her way to the inner chamber and Jude. CHAPTER VIII The following June Joyce's little boy was born. It was a most inconvenient time for him to make his appearance. The late spring had delayed the logging season. The winter had been a long-continued, cold one; the men at the different camps had fretted under the postponed ending of their jobs, and severe discipline had been necessary in more than one camp. Hillcrest's ideas of decency had been deeply outraged; its courts of justice had been kept busy by men, who, unable to resist temptation after restraint had at last been removed, carried lawlessness to an unprecedented excess. The river, too, with the depravity of inanimate things, had taken that occasion to leap all bounds and run wild where never before it had ventured. Not being content in carrying its legitimate burden of logs to the lower towns, it bore away, one black night, more than half of the lumber that Jude had piled near the clearing for Ralph Drew's new house. This occurrence sent Jude into one of the fits of sullen frenzy which were becoming more and more common to him. He had been obliged to track the stolen lumber many miles to the south, seize it there, and make arrangements for bringing it back. This absence from the scene of his life battle, turned Jude into a veritable fiend for the time being. He had enough self-confidence to believe he could hold things in his own hands, when his hands and eyes were on the spot, but with absence and distance--bah! Many a horse and man suffered that spring from Jude's evil temper. Whether Gaston was aware of conditions or not, who could tell? He took a keen delight in the manual labour of working on Drew's house. He and Filmer, with or without Jude, hammered, sawed and made rough designs that filled their days with honest toil and brought healthy sleep to their tired bodies. And just when the early wild flowers were timidly showing themselves, after the winter's long reign, little Malcolm Lauzoon opened his eyes upon the scene. How could he know that the festivities at the Black Cat were interrupted by Jude's necessary absences, and Isa Tate's voluntary visits to Joyce's home? Leon Tate, good-naturedly reaping a belated prosperity, had insisted that his wife serve Joyce how and as she might. Jude was becoming a man to be considered. He evidently had a future, and the tavern's attractions had never held a sure power over Jude. Here was Leon's opportunity for putting Jude under obligations.