It was very late when a nurse, the only one to be got on the spur of the moment, arrived at the farmhouse. Bram was still sitting by the kitchen fire. When she had been installed upstairs Joan came down for a little while.
“What, you here still, Mr. Elshaw?” cried she.
“Well, you might have known I should be,” he answered with a faint smile. “I’m here till I’m turned out, day and night now!”
“Why, sir, ye’d best goa whoam,” said Joan kindly. “Ye can do no good, and Ah won’t leave her, ye may be sure. Ah’ve sent word whoam as they mun do wi’out me till t’ mornin’.”
“Ah, but I’ve something to say to you, Joan. Look here; doesn’t it seem very strange that Mr. Cornthwaite when he is half-mad with grief at his son’s death, should come all the way out here to see his niece? And that he should say nothing more about—about the death of his son? And that he should give orders for a nurse to come, and undertake to pay all the expenses of her illness? Doesn’t it look as if——”
Joan interrupted him with a profound nod.
“Lawk-a-murcy, ay, sir. Ah’ve thowt o’ that too,” said she in an eager whisper. “And don’t ye think, sir, as it’s a deal more likely that that poor, wild body Meg killed Master Christian wi’ her strong arms and her mad freaks than that our poor little lass oop yonder did it?”
Bram sprang up.
“Joan, that’s what I’ve been thinking myself ever since the woman rushed out from here. She said she’d sent to h—— the woman and the man she hated, didn’t she? Well, if Claire was the woman, surely Mr. Christian must have been the man!”
They stared each into the face of the other, full of strong excitement, each deriving fresh hope from the hope each saw in the wide eyes of the other. At last Joan seized his hand, and wrung it in her own strong fingers with a pressure which brought the water to his eyes.