"All right I think, Sir. I have no fault to find with him, except that he is a bit dreamy sometimes. He came home from Friars Court the day before yesterday, saying that he wished to end his engagement with me as soon as possible. I asked him on what ground, and he had nothing to say for himself. I told him, however, he must stay anyhow till to-day as I was depending on him. He's a good workman."
After getting Jem's address from the carpenter Peter drove to a street in the centre of Elminster, and throwing the reins to his man made his way into a dark court in one of the houses of which he had been told Jem had his lodgings.
As he was about to knock at the door it opened and the man he was looking for appeared. Jem fell back a pace or two at the sight of his visitor, then his eyes flashed dangerously.
"Do you live here?" asked Peter. "If so, may I come in?"
Jem turned round without a word, leading the way up some dark rickety stairs. At the top he turned a handle and Peter found himself in a room low and comfortless. Only bare furniture could he see, and the furniture did not exactly match with the man who used it, who looked at his visitor with a pair of honest though fierce eyes.
It was some time before Peter could make Jem understand the drift of his words. The man seemed dazed when he told him of Meg's disappearance. But when once he took in that she had fled from Friars Court he sprang from his seat in agitation and took up his cap, which he had flung on the table.
"Do I know where she is?" he said roughly and fiercely in answer to Peter's question. "Am I likely to? Meg don't want no more of me. I've made sure of that. It ain't likely that after what she did at that house she'd come and look me up. But for all that I shan't leave off looking after her. Now she's left the Court I'm her only friend, and if I don't see after her, no one will." Then he leant his hands on the table and looked Peter fiercely in the face.
"I'd just like to know though why she left. If anyone was unkind to her I'd wish to repay them."
"It was a surprise to everyone at the Court," answered Peter. "And she left no word of explanation. That's why I came to you. I knew you were her friend."
"You knew it? How did you know it?" demanded Jem roughly.