Donelle had stayed close to Jo since she had come back, she shrank from everyone. She meant, some day, to go to Marcel Longville—when the Captain was at a safe distance. She meant to have Marcel tell her many things, but not now! She was going to face the future quite bravely, without shame or cringing. Jo should have that reward at least. In the meantime, Donelle wished fervently, and with primitive directness, that Pierre Gavot would die a quick and satisfactory death and be well out of the way before he again got drunk enough to open his vile lips. "If he were here now," mused Donelle, the while playing a charming sonata, "I’d push him off the rocks and have done with it! What good is he? All his life he’s been messing things, and I’m horribly afraid of him. I wish he was dead." A crackling of the dry bushes startled her and she turned to see, coming down the Right of Way leading from the road to the river, Tom Gavot! Donelle knew him at once though his good clothes, his happy, handsome face did their best to disguise him. "Why!" she cried, getting up with a smile, "when did you get back?" "A week ago," said Tom, "and it’s about time. It has been three years since I went away." He beamed upon the girl. "I’ve learned how to see a road where there isn’t even a trail," he went on. "I’m a surveyor. And you?" He glanced at her violin. "I’ve learned to fiddle." Donelle’s eyes could not leave the dark, handsome face. It was such a good, brave face, and the mere fact of Tom Gavot having returned seemed to make things safer. Tom was like that, quiet, strong, and safe! In a flash Donelle realized that the sense of shame and degradation which had driven her from the Walled House was driving her now to Tom Gavot. She felt sure that he, that all the others, had known what she herself knew now, and yet it had not made Tom despise her. Her lips quivered and her eyes filled. "It is so good to see you!" she said softly. Tom’s face was suddenly very serious. "I came back to see how things were going," he said quietly, "and now that I am here, I’m going to stay." "How long?" the question was weighted with longing. "Until there is no more need," said Tom. Then he threw caution to the winds. "My father has told me!" he breathed hard, "he told me! Are you, a girl like—like you, going to let the mad words of a drunken man turn you back?" For an instant Donelle faltered. Could there be a mistake? She had not thought of that. "If what he said, Tom Gavot, was true, I had to turn back. The words _were_ true, were they not?" Tom longed to lie, longed to set her free from the horror that he saw filled her, but he was too wise and just. "Suppose they were, suppose they were! Suppose Mam’selle did have the blackest wrong done her that a man can do a woman; hasn’t she paid for it by her life and goodness?" "Yes, Tom, she has!" Hope had gone from the girlish face, but purpose and strength were there.