“Aye freak you may well call it, as indeed I told her myself. But she is as stubborn and as proud as can be on this matter, and all she would say was that no man was worth a thought, save her old father, and she begged me give her a few days away, to collect herself, ere she wrote to tell you you must see her no more!” The lieutenant, whose limbs were shaking very much, sat down quietly, with his head spinning round. What cause of offense he could have given Joan, to induce her to treat him in this apparently heartless manner, he had not the remotest notion. The parson easily perceived how bewildered he was, and presently he said— “’Twas after a visit from poor Gardener Tom, who came to the door after breakfast this morning, that she flew into so great a passion. She would not tell me what he said, save that no man was to be trusted by any woman. Does that give you any clue to her behavior?” “Gardener Tom!” echoed Tregenna, at first without an idea as to any connection between the smuggler’s visit and Joan’s abrupt departure. “Had it naught to do with your conduct towards another woman, think you?” suggested Parson Langney, watching him with keen eyes. “It was at the same time that Tom told us of the death of poor Ann Price.” At the mention of the name Tregenna started up. “What did he tell her about that?” asked he quickly. “Ah!” said the vicar, with meaning. “Then it had something to do with that, eh?” “Surely, surely, sir, Joan has too much sense, too much generosity, to be angry with me for showing kindness towards a dying woman!” cried the young man, with fire. “Nay,” said the parson, “I know not. A lass is a strange creature: how far did thy kindness go, Harry?” Tregenna frowned. It flashed across his mind now that perhaps one of the smugglers’ boats had been hovering about the cutter at the time of Ann’s death, unnoticed in the excitement and commotion caused by the return of the boats’ crews and the capture of a prisoner. If this were so, and if Gardener Tom had been one of the occupants, it was very possible that he had seen the kiss Tregenna had given the dying woman, and that he had recounted the incidents of that passionate farewell of hers to Joan. Since Tom was jealous himself, it was not likely that he would let the story lose in the telling. This seemed the only possible explanation of Joan’s strange flight, and it was a most disquieting one. “’Tis true I did kiss her, sir, at her request,” said Tregenna, after a short pause. “But there was never a kiss given in this world that was less cause for jealousy!” “Well, I believe you, Harry, for I know you to be most truly attached to my daughter. But whether she will believe, is another question. A woman looks not at these things with a man’s eyes, nor does she listen to the recital of them with a man’s ears.”