“Stop; this is all wrong; you are mistaken, you kind hearts,” she said. “Mr Sim didn’t tell you all—or nearly all. I cannot marry him; and if there was but one man left on earth and ’twas he, I’d not marry him. ’Twas this I said to him; that if the only way to clear my Daniel’s name was by taking him for a husband, then I’d do it.”
“He says that you promised?”
“Only that, Mr Beer. And how if my Daniel’s name don’t lie at the mercy of Titus Sim? I can’t tell you about it yet. Presently I will.”
Johnny Beer patted the bottle.
“Then we’ll keep this high-spirited liquor till we all know where we are,” he said. “Never shout when you’re in doubt. But we’ll shout an’ see the stuff foam another day. Come on home, Jane. And I do hope still, my dear, you’ll let that poor, white-faced wretch find his way into your heart. For it all points to him; and you can’t bide here wasting your womanhood in the midst of the desert for ever. You might so well go in a convent of holy women—a very frosty picture, I’m sure.”
“My!” said Mrs Beer. “If she haven’t stuck her letter ’pon the mantel-shelf an’ never read a line of it! Now, to me, a letter’s like a thorn in my finger till ’tis open and mastered.”
Minnie handed the note to her friend. She had felt a faint flutter on seeing it, and thought that by blessed chance Dan might have written to her again before the end of his life. But the postmark was ‘Moretonhampstead’; the writing she did not know.
“I’ve no secrets,” said Minnie. “Read it out, Jane. If there’s anything good in it for me, ’twill be as much a joy to you as to me.”
“Give it here,” commanded Johnny. “In the matter of reading a letter, I may be said to know what’s what. I’ll read it aloud, since you’ve got no secrets, my dear, and if there’s a pennyworth of good in it—enough for the excuse, I’ll open the champagne after all. We’m on the loose to-night seemingly.”