The farmhouse looked desolate in the dusk of the November evening when Bram, in fulfilment of his promise to Theodore, crossed the farmyard to the back door and tapped at it lightly. It was opened by Joan, who looked as if she had been interrupted in the middle of “a good cry.” “Ay, coom in, sir,” said she, “coom in. But you’ll find no company here now.” “Isn’t Mr. Biron back yet?” “No, sir,” she answered with a sudden change to aggressive sullenness, “and he’s welcome to stay away, he is! If it hadn’t been for that miserable auld rascal, poor Miss Claire ’ud never been took away from us. Ah wouldn’t have on my conscience what yon chap has, no, not for a kingdom.” Bram, sombre and stern, sat down by the fire, staring at the little wooden stool on which he had so often seen Claire sitting in the opposite corner, with her sewing in her hand. The big chimney-corner which they had both loved--how bare it looked without her! Joan, alone of all the people he had met that day, seemed to understand what had taken place in him, to realize the sudden death, the total, irremediable decay, of what had been the joy of his life. She put down the plate she had been wiping, and she came over to look at him in the firelight. There was no other light in the room. “Poor lad! Poor chap!” she murmured in accents so tender, so motherly, that her rough voice sounded like most sweet, most touching music in his dull ears. For the first time since the horrible shock he had received that morning his features quivered, became convulsed, and a look of desperate anguish came into his calm gray eyes. Her strong right hand came down upon his shoulder with a blow which was meant to be inspiriting in its violent energy. “Well, lad, ye must bear oop; ye must forget her! Ay, there’s no two ways about it. It’s a sad business, an’ Ah’m broken oop abaht it mysen, but she’s chosen to go, an’ there’s no help for it, an’ no grieving can mend it! It was only you, an’ her liking for you, that stopped her from going before, I reckon. Look at yon auld spend-t’-brass and the life she’s led wi’ him, always having to beg, beg, beg for him from folks as didn’t pity her as they should!” Bram moved impatiently. “Yes, that’s what I cannot forgive him!” growled he. Joan stared at him in the dusk. “Have you heard,” said she, peering mysteriously into his face, “if anything ’as happened while you were away?” Bram shook his head. “Well, summat did happen. Mr. Biron got money from some one, an’ began to spend it loike one o’clock. You must have heard o’ that?” Bram nodded, remembering the new hunter and Theodore’s smart appearance.