“You should have told me the drackly minute Ellen started not to treat you proper.  I’d have spoken to her....  Now we’re in for a valiant terrification.”

“I’m unaccountable sorry, Jo.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Since around nine.  I went out to see the tegs, counting them up to go inland, and when I came in for dinner the gal told me as Ellen had gone out soon after breakfast, and had told her to see as I got my dinner, as she wouldn’t be back.”

“Why didn’t you start after her at once?”

“Well, I made sure as she’d gone to you.  Then I began to think over things and put ’em together, and I found she’d taken her liddle bag, and I got scared.  I never liked her seeing such a lot of that man.”

“Then why didn’t you stop it?”

“How could I?”

“I could have—­and the way people talked....  I’d have locked her up sooner than ... well, it’s too late now ... the boat went at twelve.  Oh, Arthur, why didn’t you watch her properly?  Why did you let her go like that?  Think of it!  What’s to become of her—­away in foreign parts with a man who ain’t her husband ... my liddle Ellen ... oh, it’s turble—­turble—­”

Her speech suddenly roughened into the Doric of the Marsh, and she sat down heavily, dropping her head to her knees.

“Joanna—­don’t, don’t ... don’t take on, Jo.”

He had not seen her cry before, and now she frightened him.  Her shoulders heaved, and great panting sobs shook her broad back.

“My liddle Ellen ... my treasure, my duckie ... oh, why have you left us?...  You could have come back to me if you didn’t like it....  Oh, Ellen, where are you?...  Come back ...”

Arthur stood motionless beside her, his frame rigid, his protuberant blue eyes staring through the window at the horizon.  He longed to take Joanna in his arms, caress and comfort her, but he knew that he must not.

“Cheer up,” he said at last in a husky voice, “maybe it ain’t so bad as you think.  Maybe I’ll find her at home when I get back to Donkey Street.”

“Not if she took her bag.  Oh, whatsumever shall we do?—­whatsumever shall we do?”

“We can but wait.  If she don’t come back, maybe she’ll send me a letter.”

“It queers me how you can speak so light of it.”

“I speak light?”

“Yes, you don’t seem to tumble to it.”

“Reckon I do tumble to it, but what can we do?”

“You shouldn’t have left her alone all that time from breakfast till dinner—­if you’d gone after her at the start you could have brought her back.  You should ought to have kicked Sir Harry out of Donkey Street before the start.  I’d have done it surely.  Reckon I love Ellen more’n you.”

“Reckon you do, Jo.  I tell you, I ought never to have married her—­since it was you I cared for all along.”

“Hold your tongue, Arthur.  I’m ashamed of you to choose this time to say such an immoral thing.”