CHAPTER XXXIII
GONE
“DEAR JOAN,
“I daresay you will wonder at not having heard from me for so long, but I have been busy. Things have been going from bad to worse with me of late, and I have been obliged to give up the old offices in Gracebury. I often think of the days when we were so much together, as I daresay you do. Naturally I miss you, and naturally I want to see you again. I feel that you seemed to have some objection to my coming to your house. That being so, I wish to consult your wishes in every way, and so I am writing to suggest that you meet me to-morrow, that is Saturday night, on the Little Langbourne Road. I daresay you will wonder why I am so familiar with your neighbourhood, but to tell you the truth I am naturally so interested in you that I have been down quietly several times—motoring, just to look round and hear news of you from local gossip, which is always amusing. I have heard of your engagement, of course, and I am interested; but we will talk of that when we meet—to-morrow night at the gate leading into the field where the big ruined barn stands, about half a mile out of Starden on the Little Langbourne Road at nine o’clock. This is definite and precise, isn’t it? It will then be dark enough for you to be unobserved, and you will come. I am sure you will come. You would not anger and pain an old friend by refusing.
“I hear that the happy man is a sort of gentleman farmer who lives at Buddesby in Little Langbourne. If by any chance I should fail to see you at the place of meeting, I shall put up at Little Langbourne, and shall probably make the acquaintance of Mr. John Everard.
“Believe me,
“Your friend,
“PHILIP SLOTMAN.”
It was a letter that all the world might read, and see no deep and hidden meaning behind it, but Joan knew better. She read threat and menace in every line. The man threatened that if she did not keep this appointment he would go to Langbourne and find John Everard, and then into John Everard’s ears he would pour out his poisoned, lying, slanderous story.
Better a thousand times that she herself should go to Johnny and tell him the whole truth, hiding nothing. Yet she knew that she could not do that; her pride forbade. If she loved him—then it would be different. She could go to him, she could tell him everything, laying bare her soul, just because she loved him. But she did not love him. She liked him, she admired him, she honoured him; but she did not love him, and in her innermost heart she knew why she did not love Johnny Everard, and never would.
But the letter had come, the threat was here. What could she do? to whom turn? And then she remembered that hard by her own gate was a man, the man to whom she owed all this, all her troubles and all her annoyance and shame, but a man who would fight for and protect and stand by her. Her heart swelled, the tears gathered for a moment in her eyes.
He had not answered the letter she had sent him a couple of days ago. She had looked for an answer, and had felt disappointed at not receiving one, though she had told herself that she expected none.
For long Joan hesitated, pride fighting against her desire for help and support. But pride gave way; she felt terribly lonely, even though she was soon to be married to a man who loved her. To that man ought she to turn, yet she did not, and hardly even gave it a thought. She had made no false pretences to Johnny Everard. She had told him frankly that she did not love him, yet that if he were willing to take her without love, she would go to him.
So now, having decided what she would do, Joan went to her room to write a letter to the man she must turn to, the man who had the right to help her. She flushed as the words brought another memory into her mind; the flush ran from brow to chin, for back into her mind came the words the man had uttered. Strange it was how her mind treasured up almost all that he had ever said to her.
“You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart!”