‘He was fat and mottled like a toad,’ she said pleadingly. ‘He was Sir John’s, my father’s, shipping-agent.’ He conned her queerly, and a little sadly. ‘Your father’s, Joan? Do you still say so?’ ‘Why should I not?’ she answered, wondering. ‘I don’t understand you.’ ‘Joan, do you remember that first day we met in the beautiful glen?’ ‘Yes, Brion.’ ‘And you said, as we parted, that I had guessed your secret.’ ‘Brion, I never did. I remember every word. I said “Have you guessed my secret?” Which was not to say you had.’ ‘That is but a quibble, after all. Why would you not be candid with me?’ She dropped her lids, plucking at the blades of grass, in a way which recalled, O, so pathetically, the sorrow of an earlier day. ‘I’faith and in truth I _am_ Joan, Brion,’ she said piteously. ‘What, two Joan Medleys?’ ‘Yes, two Joans. I cannot help it if my mother named me so.’ ‘Your mother? She would have two daughters named Joan?’ ‘Nay, but one. It was my father had the two.’ She raised the blue eyes, with a line of appealing pain between them, to his. O, _will_ you not understand? they said. ‘Joan!’ whispered Brion, in a voice of amazed comprehension: ‘are you--are _you_ a “bustard” too?’ She did not answer, and he heaved himself a thought nearer her. ‘You poor dear! And I never thought or guessed, blockhead that I am. Why, to be sure’--he laid a compassionate hand on her arm. ‘Did you never know _her_, Joan?’ The girl shook her head. ‘Only in dreams. I think she died very young.’ ‘Like mine. O, Joan! were we not guided by these two to meet one another? I think we need not have feared the spirits of the ilex grove. Tell me, dear’--he pressed closer, and laid his cheek coaxingly against the soft shoulder; and she flushed, but suffered him--even leaned a little, irresistibly, towards the caress. ‘I have been longing, yet agonising, from the first to put one question to you--just one. Joan--you are still unwed?’ Looking straight before her, she whispered yes--it stood to reason. ‘Why?’ he asked rapturously. ‘If you do not know, Brion, how can I tell you?’ Every nerve in his body thrilled with ecstasy. ‘You need not,’ he said. ‘I hide my eyes before such loving constancy--I will, Joan, yes, I will, in your hair, in your neck. O, how could I ever have doubted you, my own maid!’ ‘Did you doubt me, Brion?’ ‘The way of parting has been long, sweetheart, and sometimes unhappy; but it finds me at the blissful end, as at the beginning, thy maiden knight. Yet there have been moments when despair and loneliness--O, Joan! will you forgive me, not that I broke my plight, but that ever I thought I could?’ ‘Poor boy! It is different with a man.’ ‘You sweet! Then, sometimes, thinking you--what I thought you, it seemed a mad presumption on my part--O, I have such a tale to tell you, Joan! But now, two nameless things together----’