They both laughed a little at this, but the soul was taken out of the laugh by the perception slowly dawning upon both that Mrs. Blencarrow had said nothing, did not join either in their laugh or their thankfulness for having come, and had, indeed, slightly shrunk from her brother’s hand, and still stood without asking them to sit down. ‘I’m afraid you are angry with us,’ said Roger d’Eyncourt, ‘for having hurried here as if we believed it. But there never is any certainty in such matters. We thought it better to settle it at once--at the fountain-head.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, but no more. The brothers looked at each other again, this time uneasily. ‘My dear Joan,’ said the Colonel--but he did not know how to go on. ‘The fact is,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt, ‘that you must give us your authority to contradict it, don’t you know--to say authoritatively that there is not a shadow of truth----’ ‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. ‘Eh? Ah! Oh yes,’ said both men together. They thought for a moment that she was giving them her ‘authority,’ as they said. The Colonel rolled an easy chair near to her. Roger d’Eyncourt stood up against the glow of the fire. ‘Of course, that is all we want--your word,’ said the Colonel. She was still standing, and seemed to be towering above him where he sat in that low chair; and there was a dumb resistance in her attitude which made a strange impression upon the two men. She said, after a moment, moistening her lips painfully, ‘You seem to have taken the word of other people against me easily enough.’ ‘Not easily; oh no! with great distress and pain. And we did not take it,’ said the younger brother; ‘we came at once, to hear your own----’ He stopped, and there was a dead silence. The Colonel sat bending forward into the comparative gloom in which she stood, and Roger d’Eyncourt turned to her in an attitude of anxious attention; but she made no further reply. ‘Joan, for God’s sake say something! Don’t you see that pride is out of the question in such circumstances? We must have a distinct contradiction. Heavens! here’s someone coming, after all.’ There was a slight impatient tap at the door, and then it was opened quickly, as by someone who had no mind to be put back. They all turned towards the new-comer, the Colonel whirling his chair round with annoyance. It was Brown--Mrs. Blencarrow’s agent or steward. He was a tall young man with a well-developed, athletic figure, his head covered with those close curling locks which give an impression of vigour and superabundant life. He came quickly up to Mrs. Blencarrow with some papers in his hand and said something to her, which, in their astonishment and excitement, the brothers did not make out. He had the slow and low enunciation of the North-country, to which their ear was not accustomed. She answered him with almost painful distinctness. ‘Oh, the papers about Appleby’s lease. Put them on the table, please.’