“Know!” said old Jane, who, ordinarily a taciturn woman, was now excited and inclined to volubility.  “Don’t you suppose I’ve got eyes and ears?  Didn’t I see them for ever and ever so long sittin’ out on this piazza, where everybody could see ’em, a-spoonin’ like a couple of young people?  And didn’t I see ’em tearin’ themselves asunder as if they couldn’t bear to be apart for an hour?  And didn’t I hear her tell him she was goin’ home to get an extry good supper for him?  And didn’t I hear her call him ‘dear John,’ and kiss her hand to him.  And if you don’t believe me you can go into the kitchen and ask Mary; she heard the ‘dear John’ and saw the hand-kissin’.  And then didn’t he tell me he was goin’ to the Ports’ to supper, and if he stayed late and anybody asked for him—­meaning you, most probable, and I think he might have left somethin’ more of a message for you—­that he was to be found with the Ports—­with Maria most likely, for the old man goes to bed early?”

Dick made no answer; he was standing motionless looking out upon the flowers in the garden.

“And perhaps you haven’t heard of Miss Olive comin’ past on a bicycle,” old Jane remarked.  “I saw her comin’, and I knew by the look on her face that it made her sick to see that woman sittin’ here, and I don’t blame her a bit.  When he started so early for town I thought he might be intendin’ to look for her, and yet be in time for the Ports’ supper, but she didn’t come back this way at all, and I expect she went home by the shunpike.”

“Which she did,” said Dick, showing by this remark that he was listening to what the old woman was saying.

“But he cut me mighty short when I asked him,” continued old Jane.  “I tried to ease his mind, but as I found his mind didn’t need no easin’, I minded my own business, just as he was mindin’ his.  And now, sir, you’ll have to eat your supper alone this time.”

If Dick’s supper had consisted of nectar and the brains of nightingales he would not have noticed it; and, until late in the evening, he sat in the arbor, anxiously waiting for the captain’s return.  About ten o’clock old Jane, sleepy from having sat up so long, called to him from the door that he might as well come in and let her lock up the house.  The captain was not coming home that night.  He had stayed with the Ports once before, when the old man was sick.

“I guess he’s got a better reason for stayin’ tonight,” she said.  “It’ll be a great card for that Maria when the Glenford people knows it, and they’ll know it you may be sure, if she has to go and walk the soles of her feet off tellin’ them.  One thing’s mighty sure,” she continued.  “I’m not goin’ to stay here with her in the house.  He’ll have to get somebody else to help him take toll.  But I guess she’ll want to do that herself.  Nothin’ would suit her better than to be sittin’ all day in the tollhouse talkin’ scandal to everybody that goes by.”

CHAPTER XVII