"How shall I find him?"
"If you don't know that then I am wrong. And it's me that should go. If your heart cannot take you to him, 'tis not the heart I've thought it."
But Miss Joy, clutching the front page of a newspaper, was gone, bareheaded, running, in the dusk.
As for old Martha, she wailed all alone in the kitchen. No one would ever know what it had cost her to send forth another on that errand of glad tidings.
·········
The Poor Boy looked up calmly. What was possible in broad sunlight was no matter even of difficulty in the dusk. And yet it seemed to him that even for a creature of his brain she was preternaturally natural and solid-looking. Nor was he in the habit of letting her look quite so pale or breathe so hard. But when she spoke he was troubled; not because the sound of her voice was an unusual sound for him to hear, but because in the present instance it was accompanied with distinct vibrations. And that had never happened since she came to stay with Lord Harrow's daughter.
"Balking," she said, "has confessed!"
"Yes—yes," said the Poor Boy, "I always knew he did it. But I couldn't very well say so, could I? I had to take the gaff."
"There are telegrams and cables from all your friends to say how glad they are."
A shadow of bitterness came over the Poor Boy's face, but went swiftly.