He had not answered the letter she had sent him a couple of days ago.  She had looked for an answer, and had felt disappointed at not receiving one, though she had told herself that she expected none.

For long Joan hesitated, pride fighting against her desire for help and support.  But pride gave way; she felt terribly lonely, even though she was soon to be married to a man who loved her.  To that man ought she to turn, yet she did not, and hardly even gave it a thought.  She had made no false pretences to Johnny Everard.  She had told him frankly that she did not love him, yet that if he were willing to take her without love, she would go to him.

So now, having decided what she would do, Joan went to her room to write a letter to the man she must turn to, the man who had the right to help her.  She flushed as the words brought another memory into her mind; the flush ran from brow to chin, for back into her mind came the words the man had uttered.  Strange it was how her mind treasured up almost all that he had ever said to her.

"You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart!"

That was what he had said, and she would never forget, because she knew—­that it was true.

She went to her own room, where was her private writing-table.  She found the room in the hands of a maid dusting and sweeping.

“You need not go, Alice,” she said.  “I am only going to write a letter.”  The girl went on with her work.

“I did not think to appeal to you, yet I find I must appeal for help that I know you will give, because but for you I should not need it.  I—­”

She paused.

“Funny, miss, Mrs. Bonner’s lodger going off like that in such a hurry, wasn’t it?” said the girl on her knees beside the hearth.

Joan started.  “What do you mean, Alice?”

“The gentleman you gave our Bob a letter for—­Mr. Alston,” said Alice Betts.  “Funny his going off like he did in such a hurry.”

“Then you—­you mean he is gone?”

“Thursday night, miss.”

Gone!  A feeling of desolation and helplessness swept over Joan.

Gone when she had counted so on his help!  She remembered what she had written:  “I ask you earnestly to leave Starden,” and he had obeyed her.  It was her own fault; she had driven him away, and now she needed him.

The girl was watching her out of the corner of her small black eyes.  She saw Joan tear up the letter she had commenced to write.

“It was to him, she didn’t know he had gone,” Alice Betts thought, and Alice Betts was right.

* * * * *

Mr. Philip Slotman had fallen on evil days, yet Mr. Philip Slotman’s wardrobe of excellent and tasteful clothes was so large and varied that poverty was not likely to affect his appearance for a long time to come.

Presumably also his stock of cigars was large, for leaning against the gate beside the tumble-down barn he was drowning the clean smell of the earth and the night with the more insinuating and somewhat sickly smell of a fine Havannah.