Moreover, there was another matter. She must warn him to guard against the secret which she had learned on the previous night being brought directly or indirectly to the knowledge of his wife. Towards Emma her feelings, if they could be defined at all, were kindly; and Joan guessed that, should Henry’s wife discover how she had been palmed off upon an unsuspecting husband, it would shatter her happiness. For her own part, Joan had quickly made up her mind to let all this sad history of falsehood and dishonour sink back into the darkness of the past. It mattered to her little now whether she was legitimate or not, and it was useless to attempt to clear the reputation of a forgotten woman, who had been dead for twenty years, at the expense of blasting that of her own father. Also, she knew that if Samuel got hold of this story, he would never rest from his endeavours to wring from its rightful owner the fortune that might pass to herself by a quibble of the law. No, she had the proofs of her identity; she would destroy them, and if any others were to be found among her father’s papers after his death Henry must do likewise. When Dr. Childs had gone, about one o’clock, Joan saw the servant, who told her the doctor said that Mr. Levinger remained in much the same condition, and that he yet might live for another month or two. On the other hand, he might die at any moment, and, although he did not anticipate such immediate danger, he had ordered him to stay in bed, and had advised him to send for a clergyman if he wished to see one; also to write to his daughter, Lady Graves, asking her to come on the morrow and to stay with him for the present. Joan thanked the maid, and leaving a message for Mr. Levinger to the effect that she would come to see him again if he wished it, she started on her way, carrying her bag in her hand. There were only two roads by which Henry could approach Monk’s Lodge: the cliff road; and that which ran, through woodlands for the most part, to the Yale station, half a mile away. Joan knew that about three hundred yards from the Lodge at the end of the shrubberies, there was a summer-house commanding a view of the cliff and sea, and standing within twenty paces of the station road. Here she placed herself, so as to be able to intercept Henry by whichever route he should come; for she wished their meeting to be secret, and, for obvious reasons, she did not dare to await him in the immediate neighbourhood of the house. She came to the summer-house, a rustic building surrounded at a little distance by trees, and much overgrown with masses of ivy and other creeping plants. Here Joan sat herself down, and picking up a mouldering novel left there long ago by Emma, she held it in her hand as though she were reading, while over the top of it she watched the two roads anxiously.