“I think I know enough,” said Joyce, hurriedly, and rising from his chair. “I am greatly indebted to you for your kindness, Mr. Abdy.”
“Can I offer you some lunch? It will be on the table in a moment.”
Joyce declined, pleaded a train. He would have liked to sit with this kind gossipy old man, but he could not accept such hospitality under false pretences. Perhaps it was well that he acted thus, for later in the afternoon the Rector described his visitor to Mrs. Winstanley. She listened for some time, and at last broke out:—
“Why, my dear Mr. Abdy, it could have been no one else than the convict cousin! He must have come to get money out of Everard.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Abdy, arresting his hand in a downward stroke of his beard. “Who would have thought it? He seemed such a gentlemanly fellow. And I asked him to lunch!”
“I ’ll write and put the dear Bishop on his guard,” said Mr. Winstanley, virtuously.
Meanwhile, Joyce went away full of wonder and pity. It was an amazing story. Poor Yvonne! He could not believe that she had returned to the scamp of a first husband. The thought was repulsive. At any rate communication between Everard and Yvonne seemed to have been cut off. He was not very sorry for Everard.
“A little trouble will do him good,” he muttered to himself. And he found a certain grim amusement in the contemplation of the chastened Bishop, his cousin. But he felt a great concern for poor fragile little Yvonne cast adrift again upon the world. “I will find out what has become of her, at any rate,” he said, digging his stick into the road.
The natural course was to write to Miss Geraldine Vicary, whose address he fortunately remembered. If she had lost count of Yvonne, he would set to work to find her some other way. He felt as eager now to recover Yvonne’s friendship as he had been apathetic before. To lose no time, while waiting for the early return excursion train, he went into a post-office and wrote and despatched his letter.
The following morning he resumed his newly schemed out life of literary work. Three days passed and no reply came from Miss Vicary. On the fourth morning he received a black-edged envelope bearing the Swansea postmark. He opened it and read:—