"While we're talking and planning," he said, "they may give us the slip any night and be out of reach and vanished off the earth so far as we're concerned. And I say this: 'tis time we knowed what was in their letters. They be keeping apart very clever indeed, so as nobody should link up their names, though my sister always swore they was up to something; but they write, and Jane has watched Dinah go up for a letter more'n half a dozen times; and now it's time we know what's doing, else we'll get left." "To look into a knave's letters to frustrate his tricks be no crime, I reckon," admitted Robert Withycombe. "What d'you say, Mr. Stockman?" They all agreed that to read the secret correspondence was permissible, for Dinah's sake. Indeed Joe held that this had become a duty. Robert expressed sorrow for her; but he knew the situation with respect to John Bamsey and did not, therefore, say much. His own emotions to Dinah, if any had been yet awakened, cooled rapidly. He had no mind to seek a maiden so much involved. They parted presently; but John was going to tell Jane the truth that night, and impose upon her the task of reading letters when she could, to gather what definite information of Maynard's plans they might contain. "I hate for Jane to do anything so mean," declared Jerry, "but I see it did ought to be done." "It ain't mean, my son; it's for the sake of justice, and to come between Dinah and living death," explained Joe. Then the younger men went their way to Buckland, and John, leaving the brothers there, started for home. He passed Maynard on the way and guessed that he had left, or brought, a letter. Much he longed to challenge him, and fully he intended to play an active part in the future proceedings; but he hid his secret knowledge, and said 'Good night' and passed down the hill, while the unsuspecting cowman, who had just posted a letter to Dinah, responded with friendly voice. But Maynard did not overtake his master, and hearing Tom's slow voice droning in the kitchen with thin interjections from Soosie-Toosie, he retired on returning home. Indeed matters of some moment for Joe awaited him, for the time brought his thoughts sharply back to himself. Susan hastened to pour out his evening drink when he came back, and Thomas, who always rose to his feet when his master entered the kitchen, now asked if he might be permitted to say a few words. He spoke and Susan fluttered about in the background, while Joe listened and sipped from a glass of spirits and water. "You see things be risen to a crisis," began Tom, "and I feel very much that the time's ripe for an understanding. It's mournful to keep on like this, and to-day, by the post, there came a very fine offer of work for me to a gentleman's farm nigh Exeter. Everything done regardless, and good money and a cottage. So now's the appointed time to speak, and Susan and me feel very wishful to pleasure you, and we've come by an idea."