‘I’faith and in truth I am Joan, Brion,’ she said piteously.
‘What, two Joan Medleys?’
‘Yes, two Joans. I cannot help it if my mother named me so.’
‘Your mother? She would have two daughters named Joan?’
‘Nay, but one. It was my father had the two.’
She raised the blue eyes, with a line of appealing pain between them, to his. O, will you not understand? they said.
‘Joan!’ whispered Brion, in a voice of amazed comprehension: ‘are you—are you a “bustard” too?’
She did not answer, and he heaved himself a thought nearer her.
‘You poor dear! And I never thought or guessed, blockhead that I am. Why, to be sure’—he laid a compassionate hand on her arm. ‘Did you never know her, Joan?’
The girl shook her head.