he bootmaker from Deal, with two van-loads of furniture, and
his wife and four grown-up daughters--all as ugly as roots, said the
Woolpack. The Squire's furniture was sold by auction at Dover, from
which port his sailing was in due course guaranteed by credible
eye-witnesses. Joanna once more breathed freely. No one could talk
about him and Ellen now--that disgraceful scandal, which seemed to lower
Ellen to the level of Marsh dairy-girls in trouble, and had about it too
that strange luciferian flavour of "the sins of Society," that scandal
had been killed, and its dead body taken away in the Dover mail.

Now that he was gone, and no longer a source of danger to her family's
reputation, she found herself liking Sir Harry again. He had always been
friendly, and though she fundamentally disapproved of his "ways," she
was woman enough to be thrilled by his lurid reputation. Moreover, he
provided a link, her last living link, with Martin's days--now that
strange women kept rabbits in the backyards of North Farthing and the
rooms were full of the Deal bootmaker's resplendent suites, that time of
dew and gold and dreams seemed to have faded still further off. For many
years it had lain far away on the horizon, but now it seemed to have
faded off the earth altogether, and to live only in the sunset sky or in
the dim moon-risings, which sometimes woke her out of her sleep with a
start, as if she slipped on the verge of some troubling memory.

This kindlier state of affairs lasted for about a month, during which
Joanna saw very little of Ellen. She was at rest about her sister, for
the fact that Ellen might be feeling lonely and unhappy at the departure
of her friend did not trouble her in the least; such emotions, so vile
in their source, could not call for any sympathy. Besides, she was busy,
hunting for a new cowman to work under Broadhurst, whose undertakings,
since the establishment of the milk-round, had almost come to equal
those of the looker in activity and importance.

She was just about to set out one morning for a farm near Brenzett, when
she saw Arthur Alce come up to the door on horseback.

"Hullo, Jo!" he called rather anxiously through the window. "Have you
got Ellen?"

"I?--No. Why should I have her, pray?"

"Because I ain't got her."

"What d'you mean? Get down, Arthur, and come and talk to me in here.
Don't let everyone hear you shouting like that."

Arthur hitched his horse to the paling and came in.