“Who knows?” Joan smiled sadly. She was thinking of a man who had told her that he loved her. There had been more than one, but the one man stood out clear and distinct from all others; she could even remember the words he had used. “If, in telling you that I love you, I have sinned past all forgiveness, I glory in it, and I take not one word of it back.” Yet how could he love her? How could he, when he had insulted her, when he had used her name, as he had, when he had humiliated and shamed her, how could he profess to love her? And they had met but three times in their lives. “Joan, dear,” Helen Everard said, “Joan!” “Yes? I am sorry, I—I was thinking.” Joan looked up. Helen had come into the room, an open letter in her hand. “I wrote to John and Constance Everard, my nephew and niece,” Helen said. “I told them I was here with you, and asked them to come over. They are coming to-morrow, dear. I think you will like them.” “I am sure I shall,” Joan said; but there was no enthusiasm in her voice, only cold politeness that seemed to chill a little. “I glory in it,” she was thinking, “and take not one word of it back.” She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully and turned away. “What time will they be coming, Helen?” she asked, for she had made up her mind. She would think no more of this man, and remember no more of his speeches. She would wipe him out of her memory. Life for her would begin again here in Starden, and the past should hold nothing, nothing, nothing! CHAPTER XVI ELLICE Buddesby, in the Parish of Little Langbourne, was a small place compared with Starden Hall. Buddesby claimed to be nothing more than a farmhouse of a rather exalted type. For generations the Everards had been gentlemen farmers, farming their own land and doing exceedingly badly by it. Matthew, late owner of Buddesby, had taken up French gardening on a large scale, and had squandered a great part of his capital on glass cloches, fragments of which were likely to litter Buddesby for many a year to come. John, his son, had turned his back on intensive culture and had gone back to the old family failing of hops. The Everard family had probably flung away more money on hops than any other family in Kent. The Everards were not rich. The shabby, delightful old rooms, the tumble-down appearance of the ancient house, the lack of luxuries proved it, but they were exceedingly content. Constance was a slim, pale, fair-haired girl with a singularly sweet expression and the temper, as her brother said often enough, of an angel. John Everard was big and broad, brown-haired, ruddy complexioned. He regarded every goose as a swan, and had unlimited belief in his land, his sister, and the future. There was one other occupant of Buddesby, a slight slender, dark-haired girl, with a thin, olive face, a pair of blazing black eyes, and a vividly red-lipped mouth.