ch together, as I daresay you do. Naturally I miss you, and
naturally I want to see you again. I feel that you seemed to have
some objection to my coming to your house. That being so, I wish
to consult your wishes in every way, and so I am writing to
suggest that you meet me to-morrow, that is Saturday night, on the
Little Langbourne Road. I daresay you will wonder why I am so
familiar with your neighbourhood, but to tell you the truth I am
naturally so interested in you that I have been down quietly
several times--motoring, just to look round and hear news of you
from local gossip, which is always amusing. I have heard of your
engagement, of course, and I am interested; but we will talk of
that when we meet--to-morrow night at the gate leading into the
field where the big ruined barn stands, about half a mile out of
Starden on the Little Langbourne Road at nine o'clock. This is
definite and precise, isn't it? It will then be dark enough for
you to be unobserved, and you will come. I am sure you will come.
You would not anger and pain an old friend by refusing.

"I hear that the happy man is a sort of gentleman farmer who lives
at Buddesby in Little Langbourne. If by any chance I should fail
to see you at the place of meeting, I shall put up at Little
Langbourne, and shall probably make the acquaintance of Mr. John
Everard.

"Believe me,
"Your friend,
"PHILIP SLOTMAN."

It was a letter that all the world might read, and see no deep and
hidden meaning behind it, but Joan knew better. She read threat and
menace in every line. The man threatened that if she did not keep this
appointment he would go to Langbourne and find John Everard, and then
into John Everard's ears he would pour out his poisoned, lying,
slanderous story.

Better a thousand times that she herself should go to Johnny and tell
him the whole truth, hiding nothing. Yet she knew that she could not do
that; her pride forbade. If she loved him--then it would be different.
She could go to him, she could tell him everything, laying bare her
soul, just because she loved him. But she did not love him. She liked
him, she admired him, she honoured him; but she did not love him, and in
her innermost heart she knew why she did not love Johnny Everard, and
never would.

But the letter had come, the threat was here. What could she do? to whom
turn? And then