“That’s all you can tell,” said Jerrem.

“Iss, and all you can tell, too,” replied Joan; adding, as the frown on his face betokened rising anger, “There, my dear, you’d best step inside wi’ me and get a drop more o’ your mornin’s physic, I reckon.”

“Physic?” growled Jerrem.  “I don’t want no physic—­leastwise, no more than I’ve had from you already.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Joan.  “When you change your mind—­which, depend on it, ’ull be afore long—­you’ll find me close to hand.—­I must make up a few somethin’s for this evenin’,” she said, addressing Eve, “in case any of ’em drops in.  Adam’s gone off,” she added, “I don’t know where, nor he neither till his work’s done.”

“Might just as well have saved hisself the trouble,” growled Jerrem.

“No, now, he mightn’t,” replied Joan.  “There’s spurrits enough to wan place and t’other to float a Injyman in, and the sooner ’tis got the rids of the better, for ’twill be more by luck than good management if all they kegs is got away unseen.”

“Oh, of course Adam’s perfect,” sneered Jerrem.  Then, catching sight of Eve’s face as he watched Joan go into the kitchen, he added with a desponding sigh, “I only wish I was; but the world’s made for some:  I s’pose the more they have the more they get.”

Eve did not answer:  perhaps she had not heard, as she was just now engaged in shifting her position so as to escape the dazzling rays of the sun, which came pouring down on her head.  The movement seemed to awaken her to a sense of the day’s unusual brightness, and, getting up, she went to the window and looked out.  “Isn’t it like summer?” she said, speaking more to herself than to Jerrem.  “I really must say I should like to have gone somewhere for a walk.”

The words, simple in themselves, flung in their tone a whole volume of reproach at Adam, for to Eve’s exacting mind there could be no necessity urgent enough to take Adam away without ever seeing her or leaving a message for her.

“Well, come out with me,” said Jerrem:  “there’s nothin’ I should like better than a bit of a stroll.  I’d got it in my head before you spoke.”

Eve hesitated.

“P’r’aps you’m thinkin’ Adam ’ud blame ’ee for it?”

“Oh dear, no, I’m not:  I’m not quite such a slave to Adam’s opinion as that.  Besides,” she added, feeling she was speaking, with undue asperity, “surely everybody may go for a walk without being blamed by anybody for it:  at all events, I mean to go.”

“That’s right,” said Jerrem.—­“Here, I say, Joan, me and Eve’s goin’ out for a little.”

“Goin’ out?  Where to?” said Joan, coming forward toward the door, to which he had advanced.

“Oh, round about for a bit—­by Chapel Rock and out that ways.”

“Well, if you goes with her, mind you comes back with her.  D’ee hear, now?—­Don’t ‘ee trust un out o’ yer sight, Eve, my dear—­not further than you can see un, nor so far if you can help it.”