Then the poor girl began to sob as she walked, and, thus sobbing and furtively wiping away the tears that would run from her eyes, she crept back to the inn in the twilight, thoroughly weary and broken in spirit.
When Emma reached Monk’s Lodge she found her father leaning over the front gate, as though he were waiting for her.
“Where have you been, love?” he said, in that tone of tenderness which he always adopted when speaking to his daughter. “I thought that I saw you on the road with somebody, and began to wonder why you were so late.”
“I have been walking with Joan Haste,” she answered absently.
“Why have you been walking with her?” he asked, in a quick and suspicious voice. “She is very well in her way, but not altogether the person for you to make a companion of.”
“I don’t know about that, father. I should say that she was quite my equal, if not my superior, except that I have been a little better educated.”
“Well, well, perhaps so, Emma; but I should prefer that you did not become too intimate with her.”
“There is no need to fear that, father, as she is going away from Bradmouth.”
“Oh! she told you that she was leaving here, did she? And what else did she tell you?”
“A good deal about herself. Of course I knew something of her story before; but I did not know that she felt her position so bitterly. Poor girl! she has been cruelly treated.”