“And do you think I should have quitted a word to any livin’ soul but yourself?” exclaimed Jerrem.  “I haven’t much sense in your eyes, I know, Eve, but you might give me credit o’ knowing who’s to be trusted and who isn’t.”

“What’s that about trustin’?” said Joan, who now made her appearance.  “I tell ’ee what ’tis, Mr. Jerrem, you’m not to be trusted anyhows.  Why, what could ‘ee ha’ bin thinkin’ of to go sendin’ that letter you did, after Adam had spoke to ’ee all?  There’d be a purty set-out of it, you knaw, Jerrem, if the thing was to get winded about.  I, for wan, shouldn’t thank ’ee, I can tell ‘ee, for gettin’ my name mixed up with it, and me made nothin’ better than a cat’s-paw of.”

“Who’s goin’ to wind it about?” said Jerrem, throwing his arm round her and drawing her coaxingly toward him.  “You ain’t, and I ain’t, and I’ll answer for it Eve ain’t; and so long as we three keep our tongues atween our teeth, who’ll be the wiser—­eh?”

“Awh, that’s all very fine,” returned Joan, far from mollified, “but there’s a somebody hasn’t a-kept their tongues silent; and who it can be beats me to tell.  Did Jonathan knaw for certain ‘bout the landin’? or was it only guess-work with un?”

“I ain’t sure; but Jonathan’s safe enough,” said Jerrem, “and so’s the rest too.  ‘Twarn’t through no blabbin’, take my word for that:  ’twas a reg’lar right-down set scheme from beginnin’ to end, and that’s why I should ha’ liked to ha’ give ’em a payin’-out that they wouldn’t ha’ forgot in a hurry.  I’d ha’ scored their reckonin’ for ’em, I can tell ’eel”

“Awh! iss, I dare say,” said Joan with scornful contempt:  “you allays think you knaws better than they you’m bound to listen to.  Howsomedever, when all’s said and done, I shall finish with the same I began with—­that you’d no right to send that letter.”

“Well, you’ve told me that afore,” said Jerrem sullenly.

“Iss, and now I tells ’ee behind,” retorted Joan, “and to front and to back, and round all the sides—­so there!”

“Oh, all right!” said Jerrem:  “have your talk out:  it don’t matter to me;” and he threw himself down on the settle with apparent unconcern, taking from his breast-pocket a letter which he carefully unfolded.—­“Did you know that I’d got a letter gived me to Guernsey, Eve,” he said—­“one they’d ha’ kept waitin’ there for months for me?”

Eve looked up, and, to her vexation, saw Jerrem reading the letter which on her first arrival she had written:  the back of it was turned toward her, so as to ostentatiously display the two splotches of red sealing-wax.

“Why, you doan’t mane to say you’ve a-got he?” exclaimed Joan, her anger completely giving way to her amazement.  “Well, I never! after all this long whiles, and us a-tryin’ to stop un, too!—­Eve, do ’ee see he’s got the letter you writ, kisses and all?”

“Joan!” exclaimed Eve in a tone of mingled reproof and annoyance, while Jerrem made a feint of pressing the impressions to his lips, casting the while a look in Eve’s direction, which Joan intercepting, she said, “Awh! iss I would, seeing they’m so much mine as Eve’s, and you doan’t know t’other from which.”