“Well,” went on Joan, leaning forward, and dropping her voice, “it was summat to do wi’ that as broke oop poor Miss Claire. Ay, lad, don’t shiver an’ start; it’s best you should know all, and forget all if you can. Well, it was after that, after t’ auld man had gotten t’ brass, that I saw a change coom over her. She went abaht loike one as warn’t right, an’ she says to ’im one day--Ah were in t’ kitchen yonder an’ Ah heard her--‘Papa,’ says she, ‘Ah can never look Bram Elshaw in t’ face again.’ That’s what she said, my lad; Ah heard her.” Bram got up, and began to pace up and down the tiled floor without a word. Joan went on, quickening her pace, a little anxious to get the story over and done with. “You know his way. But there was summat in her voice told me it were no laughin’ matter wi’ her. An’,” went on the good woman in a voice lower still, “when Mr. Christian coom that evening, says she, says Miss Claire--‘Ah mun see ’im to-neght.’ An’ he came in, an’ they went in through to the best parlor, and they had a long talk together. That were t’ day before yesterday. She must have gone last neght, as soon as Ah left t’ house.” Still Bram said nothing, pacing up and down, up and down, on the red tiles which he had trodden so often with something like ecstasy in his heart. Joan was shrewd enough and sympathetic enough to understand why he did not speak. She finished her plate-washing, disappeared silently into the outhouse, and presently returned with her bonnet on. “Are ye going to stay here, sir?” she asked, as she laid her hands on the door to go out. “Yes; I promised I’d look in.” “Friendly loike? You aren’t going for to do him any hurt?” “No, oh, no.” “Well,” said Joan, as she turned the handle and took her portly person slowly round the door, “if so be you had, you might ha’ done it an’ welcome! Ah wouldn’t have stopped ye. Good-neght, sir.” “Good-night, Joan.” She went out, and Bram was left alone. The sound of her footsteps died away, until he felt as if he was the only living thing about the farm. Even the noises that usually came across from the sheds and the stables where the animals were kept seemed to be hushed that evening. No sound reached his ears but the moaning of the rising wind, and the scratching of the mice in the old wainscotting. Never before had he felt so utterly, hopelessly miserable and castdown. In the old days, when he had lived one of a wretched, poverty-stricken family in a squalid mean way, ill-kept, half-starved, he had had his daydreams, his vague ambitions, to gild the sorry present. Now, on the very high-road to the fulfilment of those ambitions, he was suddenly left without a ray of hope, without a rag of comfort, to bear the most unutterable wretchedness, that of shattered ideals.