“Have I said owt to vex yo'?” said Liz.
“No, lass,” was the answer, “it is na thee as worrits me. I con scarce tell what it is mysen, but it is na thee, nivver fear.”
But there was a shadow upon her all the rest of the night. She did not lay the child down again, but carried it in her arms until they went to bed, and even there it lay upon her breast.
“It's queer to me as yo' should be so fond o' that choild, Joan,” said Liz, standing by the side of the bed.
Joan raised her head from the pillow and looked down at the small face resting upon her bosom, and she touched the baby's cheek lightly with her finger, flushing curiously.
“It's queer to me too,” she answered, “Get thee into bed, Liz.”
Many a battle was fought upon that homely couch when Liz was slumbering quietly, and the child's soft regular breathing was the only sound to be heard in the darkened room. Amid the sordid cares and humiliations of Joan's rough life, there had arisen new ones. She had secret struggles—secret yearnings,—and added to these, a secret terror. When she lay awake thinking, she was listening for her father's step. There was not a night in which she did not long for, and dread to hear it. If he stayed out all night, she went down to her work under a load of foreboding. She feared to look into the faces of her work-fellows, lest they should have some evil story to tell, she feared the road over which she had to pass, lest at some point, its very dust should cry out to her in a dark stain. She knew her father better than the oldest of his companions, and she watched him closely.
“He's what yo' wenches ud ca' a handsum chap, that theer,” said Lowrie to her, the night of his encounter with Derrick. “He's a tall chap an' a strappin' chap an' he's getten a good-lookin' mug o' his own, but,” clenching his fist slowly and speaking, “I've not done wi' him yet—I has not quite done wi' him. Wait till I ha', an' then see what yo'll say about his beauty. Look yo' here, lass,”—more slowly and heavily still,—“he'll noan be so tall then nor yet so straight an' strappin'. I'll smash his good-lookin' mug if I'm dom'd to hell fur it. Heed tha that?”
Instead of taking lodgings nearer the town or avoiding the Knoll Road, as Grace advised him to do when he heard of Joan's warning, Derrick provided himself with a heavy stick, stuck a pistol into his belt every night when he left his office, and walked home as usual, keeping a sharp lookout, however.
“If I avoid the fellow,” he said to Grace, “he will suspect at once that I feel I have cause to fear him; and if I give him grounds for such a belief as that I might as well have given way at first.”