Joan met his gaze unflinchingly. The state of her conscience being serene, she was in truth rather enjoying herself, and her father's asperities had long ceased to terrify either her or Nancy. "I told Mr. Trench what I saw," she said. "Of course I hadn't thought about it before, because I knew nothing of what had happened."
"What did you see?" enquired the Squire.
She told him. He received the information with a snort. "You saw a lady looking at a picture," he said. "What is there in that? I've no doubt that Mrs. Amberley did take the necklace, but if she is going to be charged with it there's not the slightest necessity for your name to be brought in at all. What you saw amounted to nothing."
"Oh, but I think it did," said Bobby Trench. "It was what she looked like when Miss Joan caught her. You said yourself that she looked as if she had been doing something she oughtn't to have done, and was startled at your coming in, didn't you, Miss Joan?"
"Yes," said Joan. "It was just like that. And she blushed scarlet, and then ran away suddenly."
"The fact is," said her father, "that you have imagined all this, because of what you were told. You think you will gain importance by telling a story of that sort; but I tell you I won't have it."
"Oh, father dear," expostulated Joan, "I wouldn't tell stories, you know. I haven't imagined anything. It was all just as I have said."
"Well, then, you had better forget it as soon as you can," said the Squire, changing his ground. "It's a most unpleasant subject, and I won't have you talking about it, do you hear?—either you or Nancy. Now mind what I say."
He rose from his seat again, as if the subject was finally disposed of. And again Bobby Trench arrested his departure. "I'm afraid we can't leave it like that, you know, Mr. Clinton," he said. "Miss Joan's evidence is of the greatest possible importance to us. I'm bound to tell my people. Besides, surely you wouldn't want to keep a fact like that back, would you? The necklace is worth six or seven thousand pounds, and if we bring the theft home to Mrs. Amberley, my mother may get some of the pearls back. We've already traced some of them, and know that she has been disposing of them separately."
"Tell your people by all means," said the Squire. "But don't let Joan's name be brought into the trial. I insist upon that. I won't have it."