"I told him a lie," she answered. "I told him that my companion was a fellow-guest at the house where I had been staying."
A little sob of relief broke in his throat. He seized her hand in his and pressed it to his lips. It seemed to her that the touch was of fire. She looked at him thoughtfully.
"You are Douglas Guest, then?" she asked, quietly.
"I am," he answered.
CHAPTER XVI
JOAN STRONG, AVENGER
At an attic window, from which stretched a Babylonic wilderness of slated roofs and cowled chimney pots, two girls were sitting. The tan of the wind and the sun was upon their cheeks, their clothes lacked the cheap smartness of the Londoner. They were both in mourning for their father, Gideon Strong.
"Suicide, nay! I'll never believe that it was Douglas," Joan declared firmly. "Nay, but I know the lad too well. He was ever pining for London, for gay places and the stir of life. There was evil in his blood. It was the books he read, and the strange taste he had for solitude. What else? But he'd not the pluck of a rabbit. He never killed himself—not he! He's a living man to-day, and as I'm a living woman I'll drop my hand upon his shoulder before long."
"God forbid it!" Cicely cried fervently. "Please God if it was Douglas who sinned so grievously that he may be dead."
Joan rose slowly to her feet. In her sombre garb, fashioned with almost pitiless severity, her likeness to her father became almost striking. There were the same high cheek-bones, the heavy eyebrows, the mouth of iron. The blood of many generations of stern yeomen was in her veins.