“Lucy, you need not doubt either of us,” I said earnestly. “We will be, as you phrased it to-day, true as steel—and as cautious. Are you going back? Let me walk up to the top with you.”
“No, no; we part here. Seeing us together might arouse some suspicion, and there is no absolute certainty that they may not come out, though I don’t think they will. Edwards is for ever thinking of that earring: he does not feel safe about it, you perceive. Go you that way: I go this. Farewell, Johnny Ludlow; farewell.”
“Good-night, Lucy. I am off to the circus now.”
She went with a brisk step up the walk. I ran out by St. Oswald’s, and so on to the Saracen’s Head. The place was crammed. I could not get near Tod and Harry Parker; but they whistled at me across the sawdust and the fancy steeds performing on it.
We sat together in Mrs. Todhetley’s bedroom at Dyke Manor, the door bolted against intruders: she, in her astonishment at the tale I told, hardly daring to touch the earring. It was Saturday morning; we had come home from Worcester the previous evening; and should now be off to school in an hour. Tod had gone strolling out with the Squire; which gave me my opportunity.
“You see, good mother, how it all is, and the risk we run. Do you know, I had half a mind to keep the earring myself for some months and say never a word to you; only I was not sure of pitching on a safe hiding-place. It would be so dreadful a thing for Lucy Bird if it were to get known.”
“Poor Lucy, poor Lucy!” she said, the tears on her light eyelashes. “Oh, Johnny, if she could only be induced to leave that man!”
“But she can’t, you know. Robert Ashton has tried over and over again to get her back to the Court—and tried in vain. See how it glitters!”
I was holding the earring so that the rays of the sun fell upon it, flashing and sparkling. It seemed more beautiful than it used to be.