LITMIR.BIZ

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Jasper was not sufficiently strong and well to be dangerous. What was he? Was there any truth in that story he had told her father? She could not believe it, because it would not fit in with what she already knew. What place had the convict’s garb in that tale? She turned the narrative about in her mind, and rejected it. She was inclined to disbelieve in Jasper being the son of old Mr. Babb. He had assumed the name and invented the story to deceive her father, and form an excuse for remaining in the house.

      She hardly spoke to Jasper when they met. She was cold and haughty, she did not look at him; and he made no advances to gain her goodwill.

      When she received the summons to her aunt’s deathbed, knowing that she must go, she asked where Mr. Babb was, and, hearing that he was in the barn, went thither with the letter in her hand.

      He had been examining the horse-turned winnowing machine, which was out of order. As she came to the door he looked up and removed his hat, making a formal salute. The day was hot; he had been taking the machine to pieces, and was warm, so he had removed his coat. He at once drew it on his back again.

      Barbara had a curt, almost rough, manner at times. She was vexed now, and angry with him, so she spoke shortly, ‘I am summoned to Ashburton. That is close to Buckfastleigh, where, you say, you lived, to make my father believe it is your home.’

      ‘Yes, Miss Jordan, that is true.’

      ‘You have not written to your home since you have been with us. At least—‘she hesitated, and slightly coloured—‘you have sent no letter by our boy. Perhaps you were afraid to have it known where you are. No doubt you were right. It is essential to you that your presence here should not be known to anyone but your father. A letter might be opened, or let lie about, and so your whereabouts be discovered. Supposing your story to be true, that is how I account for your silence. If it be false——’

      ‘It is not false, Miss Jordan.’

      ‘I am going to Ashburton, I will assure myself of it there. If it be false I shall break my promise to you, and tell my father everything. I give you fair warning. If it be true——’

      ‘It is true, dear young lady.’

      ‘Do not be afraid of my disclosing your secret, and putting you in peril.’

      ‘I am sure you cannot do that,’ he said, with a smile that was sad. ‘If you go to Buckfastleigh, Miss Jordan, I shall venture to send word by you to my father where I am, that the money is lost, and what I have undertaken.’

      Barbara tossed her head, and flashed an indignant glance at him out of her brown eyes.

      ‘I cannot, I will not be a porter of lies.’

      ‘What lies?’

      ‘You did not lose the money. Why deceive me? I know your object in lurking here, in the most out-of-the-way nook of England you could find. You think that here you are safe from pursuit. You made up the story to impose on my father, and induce him to engage you. O, you are very honourable! discharging a debt!—I hate crime, but I hate falsehood even more.’

      ‘You are mistaken, Miss Jordan. The story is true.’

      ‘You have told the whole honest truth?’

      ‘I do not profess to have told the whole truth. What I have told has been true, though I have not told all.’

      ‘A pinch of truth is often more false than a bushel of lies. It deceives, the other does not.’

      ‘It is true that I lost the money confided to me. If you are going to Ashburton, I ask you, as a matter of kindness—I know how kind you can be, alas, and I know also how cruel—to see my father.’

      She laughed haughtily. ‘This is a fine proposition. The servant sends the mistress to do his dirty work. I thank you for the honour.’ She turned angrily away.

      ‘Miss Barbara,’ said Jasper, ‘you are indeed cruel.’

      ‘Am I cruel?’ She turned and faced him again, with a threatening brow. ‘I have reason to be just. Cruel I am not.’

      ‘You were all gentleness at one time, when I was ill. Now——’

      ‘I will not dispute with you. Do you expect to be fed with a spoon still? When you were ill I treated you as a patient, not more kindly than I would have treated my deadliest enemy. I acted as duty prompted. There was no one else to take care of you, that was my motive—my only motive.’

      ‘When I think of your kindness then, I wish I were sick again.’

      ‘A mean and wicked wish. Tired already, I suppose, of doing honest work.’

      ‘Miss Barbara,’ he said, ‘pray let me speak.’

      ‘Cruel,’—she recurred to what he had said before, without listening to his entreaty, ‘It is you who are cruel coming here—you, with the ugly stain on your life, coming here to hide it in this innocent household. Would it not be cruel in a man with the plague poison in him to steal into a home of harmless women and children, and give them all the pestilence? Had I suspected that you intended making Morwell your retreat and skulking den, I would never have passed my promise to keep silence. I would have taken the hateful evidence of what you are in my hand, and gone to the first constable and bid him arrest you in your bed.’

      ‘No,’ said Jasper, ‘you would not have done it. I know you better than you know yourself. Are you lost to all humanity? Surely you feel pity in your gentle bosom, notwithstanding your bitter words.’

      ‘No,’ she answered, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, ‘no, I have pity only for myself, because I was weak enough to take pains to save your worthless life.’

      ‘Miss Jordan,’ he said, looking sorrowfully at her—and her eyes fell—‘surely I have a right to ask some pity of you. Have you considered what the temptations must be that beset a young man who has been roughly handled at home, maltreated by his father, reared without love—a young man with a soul bounding with hopes, ambition, love of life, with a heart for pleasure, all which are beaten back and trampled down by the man who ought to direct them? Can you not understand how a lad who has been thwarted in every way, without a mother to soothe him in trouble, and encourage him in good, driven desperate by a father’s harshness, may break away and transgress? Consider the case of one who has been taught that everything beautiful—laughter, delight in music, in art, in nature, a merry gambol, a joyous warble—is sinful; is it not likely that the outlines of right and wrong would be so blurred in his conscience, that he might lapse into crime without criminal intent?’

      ‘Are you speaking of yourself, or are you excusing another?’

      ‘I am putting a case.’

      Barbara sighed involuntarily. Her own father had been unsympathetic. He had never been actually severe, he had been indifferent.

      ‘I can see that there were temptations to one so situated to leave his home,’ she answered, ‘but this is not a case of truancy, but of crime.’

      ‘You judge without knowing the circumstances.’

      ‘Then tell me all, that I may form a more equitable judgment.’

      ‘I cannot do that now. You shall be told—later.’

      ‘Then I must judge by what I know——’

      ‘By what you guess,’ he said, correcting her.

      ‘As you will.’ Her eyes were on the ground. A white spar was there. She turned it over with her foot, and turned it again.

      She hesitated what to say.

      ‘Should you favour me so far as to visit my father,’ said Jasper, ‘I beg of you one thing most earnestly. Do not mention the name of my companion—Martin.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘He may suspect him of having robbed me. My father is an energetic, resolute man. He might pursue him,

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