The corporal made no response, and Dick Bracknell continued, “You know that Joy was up here looking for you?”
“The boy, Jim, told me so. Though why she should——”
“She ... she came to tell you that ... Geoff was dead ... that you are the heir of Harrow Fell——”
“No! No!” broke out his cousin in sharp protest.
“Yes! Yes! It is so. I’ve been out of it since—oh, for years! And in any case ... I shall be out of it ... altogether very soon. But it wasn’t for that only ... Joy came. She came up here to stop you from killing me ... knowing the relation between us, she was afraid that if that happened, people would say that you ... that you.... You understand?”
“Yes, I think I understand.”
“Such a possibility was rather rot, of course, but Joy didn’t know that, and she knew that you were after me. So—she’s pure gold, Joy is.”
“Yes,” agreed the corporal simply.
“You’ll marry her, of course, and go to ... to the Fell?”