“I saw him, curse him! He came and—and—”
“Thrashed you?” Joan asked quietly “I thought he might!”
“Stop it! Stop your infernal airs!” he almost shouted. “I am here for money, and I want it, and mean to have it—five thousand this time!”
“I shall not pay you!”
“Oh, you won’t—you won’t! Then I go to Buddesby. I’ll have a little chat there. I’ll tell them a few things about Marlbury and about a trip to Australia that did not come off, and about a marriage that never took place. I’ve got quite a lot to chat about at Buddesby, and I shan’t be done when I’m through there either. There’s a nice little inn in Starden, isn’t there? If one talked much there it would soon get about the place!”
Under cover of the darkness her cheeks flamed, but her voice was still as cold and as steady as before.
“Have you ever considered,” she asked quietly, “that what you think you know, may not be true?”
“It is true! And if it isn’t true, it is good enough for me; but it is true!”
“It is not!”
He laughed. “It is—at any rate I think so, and others’ll think so. It’ll want a lot of explaining away, Joan, won’t it? if even it isn’t true. But I know better. Well, what about it—about the money?”