"God made the law for man and woman, Mam’selle——"
"Stop!" Jo stood up and flung her head back. "Stop! What do such as you know of God and his law? It’s your own law you’ve made to cover all your wickedness and selfishness and then you—you label it with God’s mark. But it’s not God’s fault. We women must show up the fraud and learn the true from the false. Oh! I’ve worked it out in my mind all these years while I’ve toiled and thought. But, Gavot, while we’ve been talking something has come to me quite clear. Not meaning to, you’ve done me a good turn.
"There’s one way I can get something of what I want, and it’s taken this scene to show me the path. Come to-morrow. You shall see, all of you, that I’m not the helpless thing you think me. Thinking isn’t all. When we’ve thought our way out, we must act. And now get along, Gavot, the Lord takes queer ways and folks to work out his plans. Good-night to you and thank you!"
Pierre found himself on his feet and headed toward the door which Jo was holding open.
Outraged and flouted, knowing no mercy or justice, he had only one thing to say:
"Curse you!" he muttered; "curse and blast you."
Then he slunk out into the wild, black night.
A woman scorned and a man rejected have much in common, and there was the explanation to the Longvilles to be faced!
After Mam’selle was certain that Gavot was beyond seeing her next move, she flung the door wide open, letting the fresh, pure night air sweep through the hot room.
Nick sprang to his feet but, deciding that the change in temperature had nothing to do with the late guest, he sidled over to Jo who stood on the threshold and pushed his questioning nose into her hand.
"Come, old fellow," she said gently, "we do not want sleep; let us go out and have a look at the sky. It will do us both good."
Quietly they went forth into the night and stood under a clump of pine trees back of the house and near the foot of the hill.
The clouds were splendid and the wind, like a mighty sculptor, changed their form and design moment by moment. They were silver-edged clouds, for a moon was hidden somewhere among them; here and there in the rifts stars shone and the murmuring of the pines, so like Cecile’s cry, touched Mam’selle strangely. It seemed to her, standing there with Nick beside her, that something of the old, happy past was being given back to her. She smiled, wanly, to be sure, and tears, softer than had blurred her eyes for many a year, wet her lashes. In a numb sort of way she tried to understand the language of the night and the hour; it was bringing her peace—after all her storms. It was like having passed from a foul spot in a dark valley, to find oneself in a clear open space with a safe path leading——? With this thought Jo drew in her breath sharply. As surely as she had ever felt it in her life, she now felt that something new and compelling was about to occur. The meaning and purpose of her life seemed about to be revealed. Jo was a mystic; a fatalist, though she was never to realize this. Standing under the wind-swept sky she opened her arms wide, ready to accept! And then it came to her in definite form, the thought that had arisen during her talk with Gavot. She had said that she could have done without man if only the rest had been vouchsafed.