‘Well,’ said Mr. Jordan, who was still in bed, ‘what is it? Do you want me?’
‘I have come to ask your permission to leave for a few days. I must go to my father, who is dying. I will return as soon as I can.’
Eve’s great blue eyes opened with amazement. ‘You said nothing about this ten minutes ago.’
‘What!’ exclaimed Mr. Jordan, trying to rise on his elbow, and his eyes brightening, ‘Ezekiel Babb dying! Is justice overtaking him at last?’
‘I hear that he is dying,’ said Jasper; ‘it is my duty to go to him.’
‘If he dies,’ said Mr. Jordan, ‘to whom will his property go?’
‘Probably to me; but it is premature to inquire.’
‘Sir!’ said Jasper gravely, ‘I undertook to repay that sum as soon as it should be in my power to do so, principal and interest. I have your permission, sir?’ He bowed and withdrew.
At supper Barbara looked round, and noticed the absence of Jasper Babb, but she said nothing.
‘You need not look at that empty chair,’ said Eve; ‘Mr. Jasper will not be here. He is gone.’
‘Called away suddenly. His father is dying.’
Barbara raised her eyebrows. She was greatly puzzled. She sat playing with her fork, and presently said, ‘This is very odd—who brought the news?’
‘I saw no one. He came in almost directly after we left him on the Raven Rock.’
‘Oh, yes—Joseph Woodman, Jane’s sweetheart, the policeman.’
‘I do not think Mr. Jasper saw him, but I cannot say.’
‘I cannot understand it, Eve,’ mused Barbara. ‘What is more, I do not believe it.’
Barbara was more puzzled and disturbed than she chose to show. How could Jasper have received news of his father? If the old man had sent a messenger, that messenger would have come to the house and rested there, and been refreshed with a glass of cider and cake and cold beef. No one had been to the house but the policeman, and a policeman was not likely to be made the vehicle of communication between old Babb and his son, living in concealment. More probably Jasper had noticed that a policeman was hovering about Morwell, had taken alarm, and absented himself.
Then that story of Jacob serving for Rachel and being given Leah came back on her. Was it not being in part enacted before her eyes? Was not Jasper there acting as steward to her father, likely to remain there for some years, and all the time with the love of Eve consuming his heart? ‘And the seven years seemed unto him but a few days for the love that he had to her.’ What of Eve? Would she come to care for him, and in her wilfulness insist on having him? It could not be. It must not be. Please God, now that Jasper was gone, he would not return. Then, again, her mind swung back to the perplexing question of the reason of Jasper’s departure. He _could_ not go home. It was out of the question his showing his face again at Buckfastleigh. He would be recognised and taken immediately. Why did he invent and pass off on her father such a falsehood as an excuse for his disappearance? If he were made uneasy by the arrival of the Tavistock policeman at the house, he might have found some other excuse, but to deliberately say that his father was dying and that he must attend his deathbed, this was monstrous.