id. And oh, I have paid before!"

"I know! And to-morrow you will meet him?"

"I--but--"

"You will meet him, Joan, but I shall be there also. Tell me where!"

She described the place, and he remembered it and knew it well enough.

"I shall be there, remember that. Go without fear--answer as you decide,
but remember you pay nothing--nothing. And then I,"--he paused, and
smiled for the first time--"I will do the paying."

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE DROPPING OF THE SCALES

It was like turning back the pages of a well-loved book, a breath out of
the past. For this afternoon it seemed to John Everard that his little
friend, almost sister, had come back to him.

And yet it seemed to Johnny, who studied her quietly, that here was one
whom he had never known, never seen before. The child had been dear to
him as a younger sister, but the child was no more.

And to-day, for these few brief hours, Ellice gave herself up to a
happiness that she knew could be but fleeting. To-day she would be the
butterfly, living and rejoicing in the sun. The darkness would come soon
enough, but to-day was hers and his.

How far in his boldness John Everard drove that little car he did not
quite realise, but it was a slight shock to him to read on a sign-post
"Holsworth four miles," for Holsworth was more than forty miles from
Little Langbourne.

"Gipsy, we must go back," he said. "We'll get some tea at the farmhouse
we passed a mile back, and then we will hurry on. Con will be worrying."

They had tea at the little farmhouse, and sat facing one another, and
more than ever grew the wonder in Johnny's mind. Why--why had this girl
changed so? What was the meaning of it, the reason for it? It was not
the years, for a few days, a few short weeks had wrought the change. And
then he remembered with a sense of shame and wrongdoing that, strangely
enough, he had scarcely flung one thought to Joan all that long
afternoon.

And now in the dusk of the evening they set off on the homeward journey.
And at Harlowe happened the inevitable, when one has only a small-sized
tank, and undertakes a journey longer than the average, the petrol ran
out. The car stopped after sundry spluttering explosions and
back-firings.

"Nothing else for it, Gipsy. I must tramp back to Harlowe and get some
petrol--serves me right, I ought to have thought of it. Are you afraid
of being left there with the car?"

"Afraid!" She laughed. "Afraid of what, Johnny?"