"He is cruel bad--worse than an innocent girl can know. Aw, my dear, you must take father's word for it. How was he walking with you to-night? 'Twas some devil's miracle, I'll warrant."
"No, then, it was not. He came from London on the afternoon train, and Miss Tresham had a bad headache and could not set me home as she always does."
"You should have come home alone. There was nothing to fear you."
"And, my dear, 'tis the last time. Mind that! 'Twill be a bad hour for Roland Tresham if I see him making love to my girl again."
"He didn't say a word of love to me, father."
"Aw, then, he was looking it--more shame to him, not to give looks words."
"Cannot a man look at a pretty girl? I call that nonsense, father."
"Roland Tresham can't look at you, Denas, any more as I saw him looking at you to-night--bold and free, and sure and laughing to his own heart for the clever he was, and the devil in his eyes and on his tongue. 'Twas all wrong, my dear, or I wouldn't be feeling so hot and angry about it. I wouldn't be feeling as if my heart was cut loose from its moorings and sinking down and down as deep as fear can send it."
"Aw, my sweet girl, there's times an angel can't be trusted, or so many wouldn't have lost themselves. It takes a man to know men and all the wickedness mixed up in their flesh and blood. There's your mother, Denas--God bless her!"
Joan came strolling forward to meet them, her large, handsome face beaming and shining with love and pride. But she was immediately sensitive to the troubled, angry atmosphere in which her husband and child walked, and she looked into John's face with the inquiry in her eyes.
"Denas is vexed about Roland Tresham, mother."
"There then, I thought Denas had more sense than to trouble herself or you, father, with the like of him. Your new frock is home, Denas, and pretty enough, my dear. Go and look at it before it be too dim to see."
Denas was glad to escape to her room, and Penelles turned suddenly silent and said no more until he had smoked another pipe on his own door-step.
Then he went into the cottage and sat down. Joan was by the fire with her knitting in her hand, and softly humming to herself her favourite hymn:
Penelles let her finish, and then he told her all that he saw and all that he thought and every word he and Denas had spoken. "And I said what was right, didn't I, Joan?" he asked.