'I asked you a simple question. It is unmannerly to refuse an answer.'
'I believe he is dead,' said he with an effort.
'I am very sorry,' was her calm reply.
The young man stopped; the girl Joyce stopped also. The twilight from the north-west was full on the white lovely face; there was no expression of distress on it, none of grief—not a trace of a tear in her large dark eyes.
'Why do you not go on? I said I am very sorry, naturally. He was my father. What else should I say?'
CHAPTER III.
WEST WYKE.
The young man and Joyce conveyed the lady between them under a low embattled gateway into a small yard or garden—it was too dark to distinguish which—and halted in the porch of a house.
Joyce said: 'Stay, I go no vurder. I niver ha' been inside a house and under hellens (slates) afore, and I bain't a going now.'
The door opened, and a blaze of ruddy light fell on them. A young lady had opened to admit them.