The clouds that came and went on Elly’s face seemed suddenly to have blown upon that wind of emotion to Susie’s. After her first look of wonder, she had given the questioner a quick suspicious troubled glance. Then Susie picked up her work again and bent her head over it, and appeared to withdraw her attention altogether. She went on working in an agitated way a minute or two after this appeal had been made to her. Then she suddenly raised her head. ‘What could he have found out? How should I know what he could find out? What was there to find out?’ ‘These are the questions I am asking you,’ cried Elly. ‘Here is his letter. I brought it to show you. It is a letter,’ cried the girl, ‘which anybody may see, not what anyone could call a love-letter. I suppose he has found out, after having spoken, that he did not--care for me as he thought.’ ‘Elly,’ said the curate, ‘I know nothing about it--but I am sure _that_ is not true.’ ‘Oh, you should see the letter,’ she cried, with a faint laugh. The clouds with a crimson tinge had wrapped her face in gloom and shame. Then she paused and put her hands to her eyes to hide the quick-coming tears. ‘Why should one be ashamed?’ she said. ‘I was not ashamed before. It was I who insisted before; for I was quite sure--quite sure---- And now what am I to think? for he has given me up, Susie, he has given me up!’ Susie kept her head bent over her work. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘of something he has found out?’ ‘Because of--yes--yes. Read it, if you like--anyone may read it. Because he thought his father was dead and he finds out now that he is alive; but what is his father to me? No father can make a slave of Jack, for he is a man. What have I do with his father, Susie?’ Susie’s work served her no longer as a shield. It dropped from her hands: she was very pale, everything swam before her eyes. ‘Oh, what is it--what is it--_what is it_?’ cried Elly, clapping her hands together with a frenzy of eagerness and anxiety and curiosity, which resounded through the silence of the house. CHAPTER XII. JOHN’S LETTER. The letter which had been received that morning, and had thrown the rectory into the deepest dismay ran thus: ‘DEAREST ELLY,