He shook his arm free from her detaining hand, and tried to give her the lantern. Its light flickered up and down, on the great boughs of the trees that stretched overhead, on his dark face, pale and stern, in a white heat of anger such as Mary had never seen there before, certainly never with herself for its object.
"Stop—let me tell you," she began, with a violent effort. "You oughtn't to speak to me like that——"
"Speak to you! I don't want to speak to you at all. I wish I had never trusted you—but it's the last time!"
"Very well," Mary said. Somehow, his extreme anger, which altered his voice, making it hoarse and shaky, so that she would hardly have known it, had the effect of raising anger and pride in her too. He was so utterly unjust, if he only knew it; and he would not let her speak to tell him. This was not a man to make a girl happy. She stepped back from him into the road; he still held the lantern in a hand that trembled.
"Very well; let it be the last time," said the girl. "That's my wish as much as yours. The place where Lily got lost is under the big trees outside the Travellers' Joy. My belief is, she's inside that house now, but the woman abused me and wouldn't answer nor let me go in. That's all I can tell you. Good night."
Her voice was as hard and cold as John's was angry.
"What am I stopping here for then?" he exclaimed. "Here, take the lantern—and whatever possessed you to take that child anywhere near the Travellers' Joy, or to go near it yourself! It's little better than a den of thieves."
"Ah—well, you see you didn't know what a wicked girl I was," said Mary bitterly; and then she laughed.
John stared at her for a moment; he could hardly believe his ears. She suddenly took the lantern from his hand, and started off on her way home; the next instant he was half across the bridge hurrying into the town.
Mary went straight back to the farm, and reached it safely, having overtaken her stepmother and the children in the lane. She would not answer a single question, only saying that she had met John, and he was gone to look for Lily. The look in her face gave Mrs. Alfrick some secret anxiety; she suspected that the two had quarrelled, and knew very well that it was all her doing.