“No, miss,” Molly answered—and heaven knows if Molly had an inkling of the secret, but certainly her face was bright with mischief. “There is a gentleman asking for you, if you please, miss. He bid me give you this.” She held out a three-cornered note.
Josina’s face burned. “A gentleman?” she faltered.
“Yes, miss, a young gentleman,” Molly answered demurely.
Josina took the note—what else could she do?—and opened it with shaking fingers. For a moment, such was her confusion, she failed to read the few words it contained. Then she collected herself—the words became plain: “Very urgent—forgive me and see me for ten minutes.—C.”
Very urgent? It must be urgent indeed, or, after all she had said, he would not come to her unbidden. She hesitated, looking doubtfully and shamefacedly at Molly. But the eyes of young kitchen-maids are sharp, and probably this was not the first glimpse Molly had had of the young mistress’s love story, or of the young gentleman. “You can slip out easy, miss,” she said, “and not a soul the wiser. They are all off about their business.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s under the garden wall, miss—down the lane.”
Jos took her courage in her hands. She snatched up a shawl from the hall-table, and with hot cheeks she went out through the back regions, Molly accompanying her as far as the yard. “I’ll be about the place, miss,” the girl said—if no one else was enjoying herself, she was. “I’ll rattle the milk-pail if—if you’re wanted.”
Josina drew the shawl about her head, and went down the yard, passing on her right the old stable, which bore over its door the same date as the table in the hall—1691. A moment, and she saw Clement waiting for her under the eaves of the Dutch summer-house, of which the sustaining wall overhung the lane, and, with the last of the opposing outhouses, formed a sort of entrance to the yard.
She had been red enough under Molly’s gaze, resenting the confederacy which she could not avoid. But the color left her face as her eyes met her lover’s, and she saw how sad and downcast he looked, and how changed from the Clement of her meetings. He was shabby, too—he who had always been so neat—so that even before he spoke she divined that there was something amiss, and knew at last, too, that there was nothing that she would not do, no risk that she would not run, no anger or storm that she would not face for this man before her. The mother in her awoke, and longed to comfort him and shield him, to give all for him. “Clement!” she cried, and, trembling, she held out her hands to him. “Dear Clement! What is it?”