“There’s a dear!” said Joan, recovering herself.  “It does me good to hear ’ee spake like that.  ’Tis such a time since I had a word with ’ee that I began to feel I don’t know how-wise.”

“Well, yes,” said Adam, smiling, “’tis a bravish spell since you and me were together by our own two selves.  But I declare your talk’s done me more good than anything I’ve had to-day.  I feel ever so much better now than I did before.”

Joan was about to answer, when a sound made them both start and stand for a moment listening.

“’Tis gone, whatever it was,” said Adam, taking a step forward.  “I don’t hear nothing now, do you?”

Joan pushed back the door leading to the stairs.  “No,” she said:  “I reckon ‘twas nothin’ but the boards.  Howiver, ’tis time I went, or I shall be wakin’ up Eve.  Her’s a poor sleeper in general, but, what with wan thing and ’nother, I ’spects her’s reg’lar wornout, poor sawl! to-night.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Wornout and tired as she felt when she went up stairs, Eve’s mind was so excited by the day’s adventures that she found it impossible to lull her sharpened senses into anything like repose, and after hearing Joan come in she lay tossing and restless, wondering why it was she did not come up, and what could possibly be the cause of her stopping so long below.

As time went on her impatience grew into anxiety, which in its turn became suspicion, until, unable longer to restrain herself, she got up, and, after listening with some evident surprise at the stair-head, cautiously stole down the stairs and peeped, through the chink left by the ill-fitting hinge of the door, into the room.

“There isn’t another woman in the whole world I’d trust with the things I’d trust you with, Joan,” Adam was saying.  Eve bent a trifle farther forward.  “You’ve done me more good than anything I’ve had to-day.  I feel ever so much better now than I did before.”

An involuntary movement, giving a different balance to her position, made the stairs creak, and to avoid detection Eve had to make a hasty retreat and hurry back, so that when Joan came up stairs it was to find her apparently in such a profound sleep that there was little reason to fear any sound she might make would arouse her; but long after Joan had sunk to rest, and even Adam had forgotten his troubles and anxieties, Eve nourished and fed the canker of jealousy which had crept into her heart—­a jealousy not directed toward Joan, but turned upon Adam for recalling to her mind that old grievance of not giving her his full trust.

At another time these speeches would not have come with half the importance:  it would have been merely a vexation which a few sharp words would have exploded and put an end to.  But now, combined with the untoward circumstances of situation—­for Eve could not confess herself a listener—­was the fact that her nerves, her senses and her conscience seemed strained to a point which made each feather-weight appear a burden.