“If you will not tell, nothing matters. I have done it, and it is not your affair.”
“Yes, it is, now that you have confided in me. Oh, you have made me unhappy!”
“You are a goose! But you may tell dear Jasper; and tell her too that her little Eve will wait for her at the turnstile on Tuesday night at nine o’clock. Now then, let’s get ready or we shall be late for dinner.”
It was very late indeed when Sylvia got home. On this occasion she was not allowed to return to The Priory unaccompanied; Lady Frances insisted on Read going with her. Read said very little as the two walked over the roads together; but she was ever a woman of few words. Sylvia longed to question her, as she wanted to take as much news as possible to Jasper, but Read’s face was decidedly uninviting. As soon as the woman had gone, Sylvia slipped round to the back entrance, where Jasper was waiting for her. Jasper had the gate ajar, and Pilot was standing by her side.
“Come, darling—come right in,” she said. “The coast is clear, and, oh! I have a lot to tell you.”
She fastened the back gate, making it look as though it had not been disturbed for years, and a moment later the woman and the girl were standing in the warm kitchen.
“The door is locked, and he will not come,” said Jasper. “He is quite well, and I heard him go up-stairs to his bed an hour ago.”
“Oh, did he not, my love? Oh, I am fit to die with laughter when I think of it! He imagines that he has demolished one quarter of the scraggiest hen in the hen-house.”
“What! old Wallaroo?” replied Sylvia, a smile breaking over her face.
“Wallaroo, or whatever outlandish name you like to call the bird.”
Sylvia sank down as she spoke into a chair. Jasper related her morning’s adventure, and the two laughed heartily.
“Only it seems a shame to deceive him,” said Sylvia at last. “And so Wallaroo has really gone! Do you know, I shall miss her; I have stood and watched her antics for so many long days. She was the most outrageous flirt of any bird I have ever come across, and so indignant when old Roger paid the least attention to any of his other wives.”
“She has passed her flirting days,” replied Jasper, “and is now the property of little Tim Donovan in the village; perhaps, however, she will get more food there. My dear Miss Sylvia, you must make up your mind that each one of those birds has to be disposed of in secret, and that I in exchange get in sleek and fat young fowls for your father’s benefit. But now, that is enough on the subject for the present. Tell me all about Miss Evelyn; I am just dying to hear.”