"He tried to get me to go away. He said in a few days all would be right. He could then save everything. I could return and repay--and--well! I wasn't made that way. I stayed." "And--the girl?" "She asked me if I had done it--she would believe no one else. I said yes; and that ended it. Her father tried to get me to explain--he was the Judge who was to have tried me--I refused and he begged to be released from sentencing me--that's all he could do for either of us." "And--your--mother?" A sob rose in Joyce's throat. "I think, even in her misery, she thanked God, since it had to be, that it was not my brother." The room was growing cold. Joyce shivered. "And then?" she faltered. "Oh! then--" Gaston's face twitched, and his voice was bitter, "then came the star-gazing through the bars--and all the rest, until I came up here. Only one stuck to me through thick and thin." "Your brother?" Joyce interrupted. "My brother? No! Just a plain friend. I told him I did not want to hear a thing while I was shut away. I knew it would hold me back from getting what I could out of the experience. It's like hell to have the outside troubles and joys brought to you while you are bound hand and foot. I saw enough of that--it did more to keep men in the mud than anything else. I just kept that space of my life clear for expiation. When the gates opened for me one day--my friend was there with all the news in a budget. "You see the lash that had cut deepest when I went away was something my mother said; 'You've broken the hearts of them who loved and trusted you.' "Nothing had mattered so much as those words--and out of the disgrace, the loneliness, the misery and deadly labour, I had worked out a plan to make up to them for the wrong I had done. It was going to be about the biggest job a fellow ever undertook; but, do you know, I had hoped that I could do it? "Well, my friend's words drove me back upon myself. There was nothing for me to do." "Why?" "The hearts were all mended--after a fashion, without my aid." "Your mother?" "She had died soon after I went away." "And your--brother--he surely--" "Oh! he had gone booming ahead like a rocket. The tide turned a bit too late for me--but it carried him to a safe harbour. In a generous and highly moral way he stood ready to repay me--but conditions had changed; I must accept certain terms." "The--the--girl?" "She'd married my brother. She it was who changed the conditions, you see. It had been a noble sacrifice for her to marry into _such_ a family--so, of course, due consideration must be shown her. Would I live abroad on an ample allowance?"