"You ain't going to go—no such thing!" he cried, coming in and slamming the door behind him. "That's a—that's a fake letter."
"Yes, I know. It doesn't make any difference. But tell me, Billy, is it father or Jude down at the Laval place?"
Billy was stricken with surprise.
"How d' yer know?" he gasped.
"Oh! it was all so foolish!" she answered smiling feebly. "If he—if Mr. Gaston had sent it, don't you see that there would have been no need of this mystery? But is it Jude or father, Billy?"
"It's old Birkdale," Billy burst out, and then between fear and relief he related what had happened in the hut in the woods.
"Then it's a longer way I must go." Joyce sighed wearily. "Do you think I could get there—walking, Billy?"
The boy eyed her as if she had gone crazy.
"'Course not. But what you want to go for, anyway?"
Joyce came close to him. He seemed the only human thing left for her to cling to, the only one to call upon in her sore need.