“Why, see here, my girl,” he drew from his pocket a gold locket and an old daguerreotype; “you don’t suppose I came without evidence, do you?”

Mechanically Joan reached across the table and took the articles—­her fingers were stiff and cold, but she managed to unclasp the cases.  Thornton was watching her; he had stopped laughing.

In the locket were two miniatures—­one of Meredith Fletcher, one of Thornton painted just after their marriage—­Doris had the duplicate of Meredith’s.

“That,” Thornton spoke deliberately, as Joan turned to the other, “is my mother!  She and I were very like.”

Joan drew her breath in sharp.

Once, back in the Dondale days, she had sung some of her old English ballads in costume—­a quaint picture of her had been taken at the time and, for an instant, she thought this was it—­she vaguely wondered how Thornton had got it—­she could not think clearly—­her brain was growing cloudy.  Then she turned the old case over in her hand and looked at it mutely.

“They discounted your resemblance to my side of the house.”  There was something almost pathetic underlying the sneer in Thornton’s voice.  “I did not know myself until I came in the door—­but when I saw you, it was as if my mother stood here.”

Joan could not speak, but, as a change of wind turned the mists in The Gap to the east instead of from the east, so her clouds were drifting; drifting, and a flood of light was blinding her.  She looked up—­her eyes were shining with tears that did not fall; her lips twitched nervously, but she was happy; happy.  The sensation brought strength and purpose.  She did not seem alone—­she was close, close to them who, unseen, but vital, were pressing near; waiting for her decision—­now that she understood!  What had her unconscious preparation done for her?

Oh! she would not fail them.  She was almost ready to prove herself.  In a moment she could master her emotions and be worthy.

Then she looked at Thornton and throbbed with hate; but as she looked her mood again changed—­she felt such pity as she had never known in her life before.

It repelled; it did not attract—­but it was pity that called forth a desire to help.  Clasping the silent witnesses of the truth in her cold hands Joan spoke: 

“No!  Aunt Doris and Nancy shall not pay,” she said, quietly.

“Who—­then?” Thornton felt the ground slipping from under him.  The young creature opposite looked so old and hard that she impressed him in spite of himself.

“You and I—­will pay!”

By those words Joan took her stand with Thornton, not against him.  He winced.

“Think—­think what all this means,” she faltered.

Thornton did think.  He thought back of the girl confronting him with his mother’s eyes.  The backward path was black and wreck-strewn; it led—­where?

“Aunt Doris has told me of—­of my mother!  You and I owe my mother——­” here Joan choked and Thornton burst in: