It might have been only fancy, but on reaching the crew-yard, old Bultitude seemed to John Maine to speak roughly to him. However, he took no notice, but went about his duties, worked very hard for a time, and went in at last to the evening meal, to find Jessie looking careworn and anxious. After tea he sent a boy up with a message to the cricket-field, saying that he was too unwell to come; and after this he went to his own room to sit and think out his future, breaking off the thread of his musings and seeking Jessie, whom he found alone, and looking strange and distant. "Jessie," he began, and she turned her face towards him, but without speaking, and then there was a minute's pause. "Jessie," he began again, and the intention had been to speak of his own affairs, but his feelings were too much for him, and he turned off the primary question to pass to one that had but a secondary place in his mind. Jessie did not reply, but looked up at him timidly, in a way that checked rather than accelerated his flow of words. "I wanted to speak to you about Daisy Banks," he said at last. "Yes; what about her?" said Jessie, wonderingly. "I ought not to speak perhaps; but you have no mother, and Mr Bultitude does not seem to notice these things." "I don't know what you mean," said Jessie, wonderingly. John Maine would gladly have backed out of his position, but it was too late, and he was obliged to flounder on. "I meant about Daisy Banks and Mr Richard Glaire." "Well?" said Jessie, looking full at him. "What about them?" "I meant that I don't think you ought to be so intimate with her now." "And why not?" "The Dumford people couple her name very unpleasantly with Mr Richard's, and for your sake I thought I'd speak." "For shame!" cried the girl, rising, and looking angrily at him. "That young Podmore has been talking to you." "No, indeed, indeed, poor Tom never mentions her name." "I won't believe, John Maine, that you could be so petty and ungenerous yourself. Mr Glaire loves Daisy, and she confided all to me. Such words as yours are quite an insult to her, and--and I cannot--will not stay to hear them."