“Connie will be worrying, Gipsy,” Johnny said. “You know what Connie is, bless her! She’ll think all sorts of tragedies—and—” He paused, his voice faltered, shook, and became silent.
They were running past Mrs. Bonner’s cottage. The door of the cottage stood open, and against the yellow light within they could see the figure of a man and of a girl, and both knew the girl to be Joan Meredyth, and the man to be Mrs. Bonner’s lodger, the man that Joan had cut that day in Starden.
The car was a quarter of a mile further down the road before either spoke, and then Johnny said, and his voice was jerky and uncertain:
“Yes, Connie will be getting nervous. I shall be glad to have you home—Gipsy.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
“HER CHAMPION”
Why should Joan have been at Mrs. Bonner’s cottage at such an hour? Why should she have been there talking to the very man whom she had a week ago cut dead in the village? Why, if she had anything to say to him, whoever he was, had she not sent for him rather than seek him at his lodgings?
Questions that puzzled and worried Johnny Everard sorely, questions that he could not answer. Jealousy, doubt, and all the kindred feelings came overwhelmingly. Honest as the day, he never doubted a soul’s honesty. If he found out that a man whom he had trusted was a thief, it shocked him; he kicked the man out and was done with him, and nothing was left but an unpleasant memory, but Joan was different.
Trust Joan? Of course he did, utterly and entirely.
“I should be unworthy of her if I didn’t,” he thought. “In any case, I am not worthy of her. It is all right!”