“Do you know if she is well?”
“I don’t. But you ought to, sir,” said she.
“I admit it. Where is she staying?”
From the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed her embarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of her cheek.
“I—don’t know exactly where she is staying,” she answered. “She was—but—”
“Where was she?”
“Well, she is not there now.”
In her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger children had by this time crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother’s skirts, the youngest murmured—
“Is this the gentleman who is going to marry Tess?”
“He has married her,” Joan whispered. “Go inside.”