“Yes, far away.  I’ve bin thinkin’ about it for a good bit:  don’t you remember I said something o’ the sort to father a little time back?”

“Iss, but I didn’t knaw there was any more sense to your words than to threaten un, like.  Awh, my dear!” she said with a decided shake of the head, “that ’ud never do:  don’t ‘ee get hold o’ such a thought as that.  Turn your back upon the place?  Why, whatever ’ud they be about to let ’ee do it?”

Joan’s words only echoed Adam’s own thoughts:  still, he tried to combat them by saying, “I don’t see why any one should try to interfere with what I might choose to do:  what odds could it make to them?”

“Odds?” repeated Joan.  “Why, you’d hold all their lives in your wan hand.  Only ax yourself the question, Where’s either one of ’em you’d like to see take hisself off nobody knows why or where?”

Adam could find no satisfactory reply to this argument:  he therefore changed the subject by saying, “I wish I could fathom this last business.  ‘Tis a good deal out o’ the course o’ plain sailing.  So far as I know by, there wasn’t a living soul but Jonathan who could have said what was up for to-night.”

“Jonathan’s right enough,” said Joan decidedly.  “I should feel a good deal more mistrust ’bout some of ’em lettin’ their tongues rin too fast.”

“There was nobody to let them run fast to,” said Adam.

“Then there’s the writin’,” said Joan, trying to discover if Adam knew anything about Jerrem’s letter.

Adam shook his head. “‘Tisn’t nothing o’ that sort,” he said.  “I don’t know that, beyond Jerrem and me, either o’ the others know how to write; and I said particular that I should send no word by speech or letter, and the rest must do the same; and Jonathan would ha’ told me if they’d broke through in any way, for I put the question to him ’fore he shoved off.”

“Oh, did ’ee?” said Joan, turning her eyes away, while into her heart there crept a suspicion of Jonathan’s perfect honesty.  Was it possible that his love of money might have led him to betray his old friends?  Joan’s fears were aroused. “’Tis a poor job of it,” she said, anxiously.  “I wish to goodness ‘t had happened to any o’ the rest, so long as you and uncle was out of it.”

“And not Jerrem?” said Adam, with a feeble attempt at his old teasing.

“Awh, Jerrem’s sure to fall ’pon his feet, throw un which way you will,” said Joan.  “Besides, if he didn’t”—­and she turned a look of reproach on Adam—­“Jerrem ain’t you, Adam, nor uncle neither.  I don’t deny that I don’t love Jerrem dearly, ’cos I do”—­and for an instant her voice seemed to wrestle with the rush of tears which streamed from her eyes as she sobbed—­“but for you or uncle, why, I’d shed my heart’s blood like watter—­iss that I would, and not think ’twas any such great thing, neither.”

“There’s no need to tell me that,” said Adam, whose heart, softened by his love for Eve, had grown very tender toward Joan.  “Nobody knows you better than I do.  There isn’t another woman in the whole world I’d trust with the things I’d trust you with, Joan.”