Robin made a quick stride towards her.

“Go out of this place!” he said, fiercely—­“How dare you come here with such lies!”

He stopped, half choked with rage.

Jenny looked at him and laughed—­then snapped her fingers in his face.

“Lies, is it?” she said—­“Well, lies make good crops, an’ Farmer Jocelyn’s money’ll ‘elp them to grow!  Lies, indeed!  An’ how dare I come here?  Why, because your old uncle is stiff an’ cold an’ can’t speak no more—­an’ no one would know what ‘ad become o’ Ned Landon if I wasn’t here to tell them an’ show his own letter!  I’ll tell them all, right enough!—­you bet your life I will!”

She turned her back on him and began to walk, or rather slouch, out of the garden.  He went up close to her, his face white with passion.

“If you say one word about Miss Jocelyn—­” he began.

“Miss Jocelyn!” she exclaimed, shrilly—­“That’s good!—­we are grand!”—­and she dropped him a mock curtsey—­“Miss Jocelyn!  There ain’t no ‘Miss Jocelyn,’ an’ you know it as well as I do!  So don’t try to fool me!  Look here, Mr. Robin Clifford”—­and she confronted him, with arms akimbo—­“you’re not a Jocelyn neither!—­there’s not a Jocelyn left o’ the old stock—­they’re all finished with the one lyin’ dead upstairs yonder—­and I’ll tell ye what!—­you an’ your ‘innocent’ are too ‘igh an’ mighty altogether for the likes o’ we poor villagers—­seein’ ye ain’t got nothin’ to boast of, neither of ye!  You’ve lost me my man—­an’ I’ll let everyone know how an’ why!”

With that she went, banging the gate after her—­and Clifford stood inert, furious within himself, yet powerless to do anything save silently endure the taunts she had flung at him.  He could have cursed himself for the folly he had been guilty of in telling his uncle about the fight between him and Landon—­for he saw now that the old man had secretly worried over the possible harm that might be done to Innocent through Landon’s knowledge of her real story, which he had learned through his spying and listening.  Whatever that harm could be, was now intensified—­and scandal, beginning as a mere whispered suggestion, would increase to loud and positive assertion ere long.

“Poor Uncle Hugo!” and the young man looked up sorrowfully at the darkened windows of the room where lay in still and stern repose all that was mortal of the last of the Jocelyns—­“What a mistake you have made!  You meant so well!—­you thought you were doing a wise thing in sending Landon away—­and at such a cost!—­but you did not know what he had left behind him—­Jenny of the Mill-Dykes, whose wicked tongue would blacken an angel’s reputation!”

A hand touched him lightly on the arm from behind.  He turned swiftly round and confronted Innocent—­she stood like a little figure of white porcelain, holding her dove against her breast.

“Poor Robin!” she said, softly—­“Don’t worry!  I heard everything.”