Gaston was playing with her. She had not been keen enough to understand, but all along he had amused himself at her expense. Having had her thrust upon him by circumstances, he had accepted the situation in his good-natured way, but underneath it was as cruel as--all else in her life. She had been an ignorant, blind fool. Never had Gaston been so daring with her. Other pretty gifts had found a place, and supplied a want, in their common life; but this--this--oh! the incongruity was cruel and--insulting. Joyce could not analyze all this--she merely felt it. But when it had sunk to the depths of her aroused instinct, the reaction took place. Had the girl been ugly physically, or had Gaston debased her, her doom would have been fixed; but there was a--chance! In the death throes of her false position, she retraced the steps of her life with Gaston. With a sickening shudder she recalled her mad fear that first awful night when he had shut the door upon Jude and the others. How he had made her feel, and at once, that from the high place that was his, he could afford to help her, and only the low and vile would misunderstand. It was because she was low and vile as Jude had made her that she had feared--what? How the knowledge had stung, then stunned her! She might have known, had she remembered, from the first Gaston had always driven her back upon herself when her foolish passion for him reared its head. No one of his own kind would ever have been led into a misunderstanding of his motives and goodness. Then in the days that followed that first terrible night, she had abased herself and striven to fill the role Gaston prepared for her! Later she studied and silently prayed that, in a small way, she might repay him for his divine kindness! But with the patient effort and the marvellous results of quickened mentality, a clear space was left in the new woman for harrowing doubt. She never again sank to the thought that Gaston could love her; but she could not utterly blind herself to the fear that he might be hurting himself through others _not_ realizing the difference between him and her. Naturally she could not go to Gaston with this doubt--it would seem an insult to him, and a shameless suggestion. Therefore she hailed Drew's advent with mingled apprehension and relief. Had he taken for granted that all was well; had he seemed glad that Gaston had saved her from her evil fate; then she would have known that such people as Gaston and Drew would understand and think no evil. But the effect of Gaston's training and influence had sunk deep. Joyce had risen above the vile thing Jude and St. Ange had tried to make her. She was, for all the wide difference between her and Gaston, a woman! A woman beautiful and alive to the highest degree. She dared not any longer ignore that. For Gaston's sake she must face the blinding truth.