A moment after she reappeared, composed.
‘A packman came this way with his wares yesterday,’ said Miss Jordan gravely. ‘Amongst other news he brought was this, that a convict had recently broken out from the prison at Prince’s Town on Dartmoor, and was thought to have escaped off the moor.’ He listened and made no answer, but sighed heavily. ‘You are safe here,’ she said; ‘your secret remains here’—she touched her breast. ‘My father, my sister, none of the maids suspect anything. Never let us allude to this matter again, and I hope that as soon as you are sufficiently recovered you will go your way.’
The door opened gently and Eve appeared, fresh and lovely as a May blossom.
‘Bab, dear sister,’ said the young girl, ‘let me sit by him now. You must have a nap. You take everything upon you—you are tired. Why, Barbara, surely you have been crying?’
‘I——crying!’ exclaimed the elder angrily. ‘What have I had to make me cry? No; I am tired, and my eyes burn.’
‘Then close them and sleep for a couple of hours.’
Barbara left the room and shut the door behind her. In the early morning none of the servants could be spared to sit with the sick man.
Eve went to the table and arranged a bunch of oxlips, dripping with dew, in a glass of water.
‘How sweet they are!’ she said, smiling. ‘Smell them, they will do you good. These are of the old monks’ planting; they grow in abundance in the orchard, but nowhere else. The oxlips and the orchis suit together perfectly. If the oxlip had been a little more yellow and the orchis a little more purple, they would have made an ill-assorted posy.’
Jasper looked at the flowers, then at her.