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Updated: June 24, 2025
Hugh's eyes kindled, for he knew that what the boy said was truth. Thursday afternoon saw Hugh back at Hurst Dormer. It was a week now since he had left Starden. She had asked him to leave, and he had left, yet not exactly for that reason. His coming here had done no good, had only given him fresh worry and anxiety, and now he realised that all his sympathy was for Tom and not for Marjorie.
It was as if, wounded by contact with the world, she had withdrawn behind her own defences. She, who had suffered insult and indignity, looked on all the world with suspicious, shy eyes. "I will break down her reserve. I think she is lovable and sweet when once one can force her to throw aside this mask," Helen Everard thought. So they had come to Starden together.
If I did hurt you, I ask your forgiveness, and I ask you also, most earnestly, to go, to leave Starden." She would have written more, much more, words were tumbling over in her brain. She had so much more to say to him, and yet she said nothing. She signed her name and addressed the letter to Hugh Alston at Mrs. Bonner's cottage. She took it out and gave it to a gardener's boy.
"Thank Heaven," Joan thought, "thank Heaven that he is here." For the first time Hugh Alston knocked for admission on the Starden door. A score of times he had asked himself, "Shall I go?" And he could find no answer. He had come at last. "What can he want? I did not know he was here in Starden. I didn't even know that he knew where Joan was.
And the first letter that she carefully put aside was the one that Joan Meredyth had written, after much hesitation and searching of mind, in her bedroom that afternoon at Starden. And during the days that followed Joan watched the post every morning, eagerly scanned the few letters that came, and then her face hardened a little, the curves of her perfect lips straightened out.
"Yet if I knew I would be happier. I would not trouble you." "Surely it does not matter. I am living in the country, then in Kent, at Starden. I I have come into a little money." She looked at him keenly. She wondered did he know, had he known that night when he had told her that he loved her? "I am glad of it," he said. "I could have wished you had come into a great deal."
"And that is where I commence my hunt!" Starden Hall was one of those half-timbered houses in the possession of which Kent and Sussex are rich.
I'll make her name reek, as I told her I would. I'll set this place and Starden and half the infernal country talking about her! If she shews her face anywhere, she'll get stared at. I'll let her and that beast Alston see what it means to get on the wrong side of a chap like me." A quarter of a mile beyond the village. Thank Heaven it was no further.
I am engaged to marry Johnny Everard, and there is no finer, better man living! I shall never see that other man again. Yesterday he and I parted for good and for always, and I am glad glad!" And she knew even while she uttered the words that she was very miserable. Connie Everard drove the pony-trap over to Starden. She brought with her a boy who would drive it back again.
But they were very late when they came into Starden, and with still some six and a half miles to go before they could reassure Connie. "Connie will be worrying, Gipsy," Johnny said. "You know what Connie is, bless her! She'll think all sorts of tragedies and " He paused, his voice faltered, shook, and became silent. They were running past Mrs. Bonner's cottage.
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