“Ah!” Mr. Forest said quietly.
Dulcibel’s eyes went to Joan again.
“There have been—worries,” she said hesitatingly. “Yes; I think my husband is worried, Mr. Forest—a good deal, perhaps.”
Mr. Forest waited, and Joan spoke impetuously.
“Mother, Mr. Forest ought to know all. He can’t judge rightly about father without.”
Dulcibel began to cry, putting her handkerchief to her eyes; and Joan took the matter into her own hands, flushing and paling alternately, as was her fashion when this subject had to be touched upon.
“It will have to be told,” she said. “Things can’t be hidden long, mother; and Mr. Forest will tell nobody else until we wish.”
A gesture of assent was his response.
“Yes, I know—yes, of course; we are quite sure,” Joan said, clasping her hands over the back of a chair. “It is a great trouble, Mr. Forest; and you will understand. You know all about me, and how it is that I live here. Just lately we have found out who my—my—people are.” She hesitated for a word. “One grandfather of mine, old Mr. Brooke, has been staying lately at Mrs. St. John’s; and the other is old Mr. Cairns, of Cairns farm. His daughter, Marian Brooke—the one who nursed mother so long—is my real mother. Of course I don’t feel her so, but she is. That is the trouble.”
Joan spoke fast, only half articulating her words. Mr. Forest would not show how startled he was. There had always been a spice of romance about Joan—a kind of princess-incognita flavor; and he had a sense of sudden descent into prosaic lower levels. A vision of the sturdy old farmer in his gaiters, and of the farmer’s angular daughter, Hannah, in tucked-up skirts and ponderous boots, swept before the mind’s eye of the doctor.