Joan accepted this solution, and having arrayed herself frivolously she bought Cuff a most remarkable collar which embarra.s.sed the dog considerably. In all the changing events of Cuff's life a collar had not figured, and it was harder to adjust himself to it than to foots of beds and meals served on plates. However, Cuff rose to the emergency and bore himself with credit.

Twice Cameron came to the hotel; twice he took Joan for a drive--"It will help you get on your feet," he explained.

"I--I don't quite see how," she faltered and, as they were driving where once she and Raymond had driven, her eyes were tear-filled. The old, dangerous, foolish past had a most depressing effect upon her.

At Cameron's second attempt to put her on her feet he succeeded, for when he paid his third call, a quaint little note greeted him at the office:

Thank you--thank you for all that you have done. I will explain everything soon, in the meantime, morally and physically, I am wobbling home.

Cameron's jaw set as he read.

"I'll wait," was what he inwardly swore. And at that moment he was conscious that, for the first time in his career, a woman had got into his system!

When Joan reached Stone Hedgeton she feared that she and Cuff would have to overcome many obstacles before they reached The Gap, for no one was willing to travel the roads.

"There is holes in the river road mighty nigh a yard deep," one man confided. "I ain't going to risk my hoss, nor my mule, nuther!"

It was the mail man who, at last, solved the problem. He had a small car whose appearance was disreputable but whose record was marvellous.

"If you-all," he included Cuff in the general remark, "ain't sot 'bout reaching The Gap at any 'pinted time, I'll scrooge you in. There's a couple of stops to make, and I reckon I'll have to dig us-all out of holes now and then--that shovel ain't in yo' way, is it, Miss?" he asked.

For Joan and Cuff were already among the mail bags and merchandise.

"Nothing is in the way!" Joan replied, "and I'll help you dig us out."

It was just daylight when they started.

It was past noon when, stiff and rather shaken, Joan scrambled out of the old car and, followed by Cuff, noiselessly made her way over the lawn to Ridge House.

She went lightly up the steps, then stood still. Doris Fletcher lay sleeping in the full, warm glow. So quiet was she, so pale and delicate, that for a moment Joan knew a fear that had had its beginning when Patricia pa.s.sed from life.

The awful uncertainty, the narrow pa.s.s over which all travel, were newly realized perils to Joan, and her breath came sharp and quick.

So this was what had happened while she was learning her lessons! She had not learned alone.

"Oh! Aunt Dorrie," she murmured. "You and I have paid and paid--but you never held me back!"

Joan sat down and waited. It was always to be so with her from now on.

In that hour a great and tender patience was born that was to calm and guide her future life. She was given, then and there, to draw upon the strength and vision that do not err. And it may have been that in sleep Doris Fletcher, too, was prepared, for when suddenly she opened her eyes upon Joan she was not startled: a gladness that was almost painful overspread her face.

"My darling! You have come at last!" was what she said.

And, as on that night when she had come to plead for freedom, Joan did not, now, rush into human touch. She nodded and whispered:

"I've come as I promised to, Aunt Dorrie. It--it wasn't my chance! Not my big chance, anyhow, but I had to find out, dearie."

"My little girl!"

Joan went nearer; she bent and kissed again and again that radiant face; then, sitting on the floor by the couch, with Cuff huddled close, she touched lightly the high peaks that lay between the parting and this home-coming, but Doris, with that deep understanding, followed laboriously, silently, through the dark valleys.

"I'm rather battered and cropped, Aunt Dorrie--but here I am!"

With this Joan tossed off her hat and voluminous coat.

"Your--hair, Joan? Your beautiful hair!"

"I have been very sick, Aunt Dorrie, my hair and my fat had to go--just enough bones left to hold my soul. But I'm all right now."

"Don't be sorry for me," Joan was pleading, "I'm the gladdest thing alive to-day. I've dropped all the old husks; I've found out just what they are worth, but some of them that seem like husks, dear, are not--I've learned that, too."

"Yes, Joan--and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new bungalow."

There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's part in the past--Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier, but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental reservation concerning it.

Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.

"I--I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head; "she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the world--trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat--I shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."

"Yes, yes--I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys--but she felt the chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light.

Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.

The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:

"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."

"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose.

When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the least idea what was happening--he saw only the bag of bones that he had rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've learned more than some girls."

And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh--she recalled only the joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the effect she was creating.

It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to announce luncheon. There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.

She gazed long upon Joan before she spoke. It was not surprise she showed, but a slow understanding.

"Miss Joan," she said at last, "seems like you ain't got the world by the tail like you uster have."

Joan threw her head back and laughed.

"No, Mary," she presently replied, "it swung so fast that I fell off--but I'll catch hold soon."

The quiet little luncheon in the quaint dining room did much to restore the long-past relations of Joan with the family. Uncle Jed came in and chuckled with delight. The old man lived mostly in the past now, and followed Mary like a poor crumpled shadow. What held the two together was difficult to understand--but it was the kinship of the hills, the stolid sense of familiarity.

After the meal was over Joan wandered about through the living rooms for a few moments, touching Nancy's loom, but speaking seldom of Nancy.

"I want to hear all about it from her," she explained; and Doris, with Joan's affairs chiefly in her thought, referred merely to Nancy's happiness, their perfect sympathy with it; and if Kenneth's name was mentioned, Joan did not notice it.

At last she went up to her room to rest.

"Quite as if I had never been away, Aunt Doris," she said, "and you don't mind if I take Cuff? The poor little chap has had so many changes that I fear for his nerves!"