Joan, who was his good friend still, and who went daily to the farm to do the housework as usual, kept him fully acquainted with all that went on there. She told him that Mr. Biron, who was still suffering from erysipelas, which died away and broke out again, was growing more irritable every day, so that it was a marvel how his daughter could treat him with the patience and gentleness she showed. Claire herself, so Joan said, was altogether changed; and indeed Bram, when he caught a glimpse of her at the windows, could see the alteration for himself. She had grown quite white, and the set, hard expression her face wore made it weird and uncanny. All her youthful prettiness seemed to have disappeared; she never smiled, she hardly ever talked. No single word, so far as Joan knew, had passed between father and daughter on the subject of the latter’s disappearance and return. Theodore was glad to get his patient nurse back; glad to have some one to bully, to grumble at, and that seemed to be all. Claire never went out, and Joan never encouraged her to do so, for Meg Tyzack still hung about the place, Joan having encountered her early in the morning and late in the evening, on her way to and from the farm. Meg, so Joan said, would slink out of the way with a laugh or a jeering question about Claire or her father. “Ah doan’t believe,” remarked Joan, when she had given Bram the account of one of these meetings, “as the lass is quite right. Yon young spark has a deal to answer for!” The “young spark” in question, Christian Cornthwaite, was in the meantime doing something to expiate his misdeeds, for his illness was both dangerous and tedious. Day after day, week after week, there came the same bulletin to the many inquirers down at the works--“No change.” Mr. Cornthwaite lost his grave, harassed look. He consulted Bram daily; took him, if possible, more into his confidence than before, over the details of the business; but he never talked about his son. He seemed, Bram thought, to have given up hope in a singularly complete manner; he spoke, he looked, as if Christian were already dead. In the circumstances, Bram found it impossible to bring before the anxious father the subject of Claire, and the distresses of the household at Duke’s Farm. Bram heard from Joan of the duns whose presence was now daily felt. Some of these he found out and settled with quietly himself; but he did not dare to pursue this course very far, lest Claire’s feminine quickness should find him out. The subject of ready money was a more delicate one still. Bram began by giving Joan small sums to supply the most pressing needs of the household at the farm, and for a little while she managed to evade Claire’s curious questions, and even to pretend that it was she, Joan, who occasionally lent a few shillings for the daily purchase of necessary food.