She did not go out into the village for several days after this, Joan observed. She stayed at home and did not even leave the cottage. She was not like herself, either. Up to that time she had seemed to be forgetting her trouble, and gradually slipping back into the enjoyments she had known before she had gone away. Now a cloud seemed to be upon her. She was restless and nervous, or listless and unhappy. She was easily startled, and now and then Joan fancied that she was expecting something unusual to happen. She lost color and appetite, and the child's presence troubled her more than usual. Once, when it set up a sudden cry, she started, and the next moment burst into tears.
“Why, Liz!” said Joan, almost tenderly. “Yo' mun be ailin', or yo' hannot getten o'er yo're fright yet. Yo're not yoresen at aw. What a simple little lass yo' are to be feart by a boggart i' that way.”
“I dunnot know what's the matter wi' me,” said Liz, “I dunnot feel reet, somehow. Happen I shall get o'er it i' toime.”
But though she recovered herself somewhat, she was not the same girl again. And this change in her it was that made Joan open her heart to Anice. She saw that something was wrong, and noted a new influence at work even after the girl began to go out again and resume her visits to her acquaintances. Then, alternating with fretful listlessness, were tremulous high spirits and feverish fits of gayety.
There came a day, however, when Joan gained a clue to the meaning of this change, though never from her first recognition of it until the end did she comprehend it fully. Perhaps she was wholly unconscious of what narrower natures experience. Then, too, she had little opportunity for hearing gossip. She had no visitors, and she was kept much at home with the child, who was not healthy, and who, during the summer months, was constantly feeble and ailing.
Grace, hearing nothing more after the first hint of suspicion, was so far relieved that he thought it best to spare Joan the pain of being stung by it.
But there came a piece of news to Joan that troubled her.
“Theer's a young sprig o' one o' th' managers stayin' at th' 'Queen's Arms,'” remarked a pit woman one morning. “He's a foine young chap, too—dresses up loike a tailor's dummy, an' looks as if he'd stepped reet square out o' a bandbox. He's a son o' owd Landsell's.”
Joan stopped a moment at her work.
“Are yo' sure o' that?” she asked, anxiously.