Chapter 12 JO BEGINS TO TALK
　　The hall clock suddenly struck loudly. DONG!'
　　'One o'clock,' said Joan. 'One o'clock in the morning! Master Julian, we can't do any more tonight.
　　This gipsy child here, she's not fit to take you trapesing out anywhere else. She's done for - she canhardly stand.'
　　'Yes, you're right Joan,' said Julian, at once giving up the idea of going out to find George that night.
　　'We'll have to wait till tomorrow. It's a pity the telephone wires are cut. I do really think we ought tolet the police know something about all this.'
　　46
　　Jo looked up at once. 'Then I won't tell you where George is,' she said. 'Do you know what the policewill do to me if they get hold of me? They'd put me into a Home for Bad Girls, and I'll never get outagain - because I am a bad girl and I do bad things. I've never had a chance.'
　　'Every one gets a chance sooner or later,' said Julian gently. 'You'll get yours, Jo - but see you take itwhen it comes. All right - we'll leave the police out of it if you promise you'll take us to whereGeorge is. That's a bargain.'
　　Jo understood bargains. She nodded. Joan pulled her to her feet and half led, half carried her upstairs.
　　'There's a couch in my room,' she told Julian. 'She can bed down there for the night - but late or notshe's going to have a bath first. She smells like something the dog brought in!'
　　In half an hour's time Jo was tucked up on the couch in Joan's room, perfectly¹ clean, though markedwith scratches and bruises² from top to toe, hair washed, dried, and brushed so that it stood up in wirycurls like George's. A basin of steaming bread and milk was on a tray in front of her.
　　Joan went to the landing and called across to Julian's room. 'Master Julian! Jo's in bed. She wants tosay something to you and Master Dick.'
　　Dick and Julian put on dressing-gowns and went into Joan's neat room. They hardly recognized Jo.
　　She was wearing one of Anne's old nightgowns and looked very clean and childish and somehowpathetic.
　　Jo looked at them and gave them a very small smile. 'What do you want to say to us?' asked Julian.
　　'I've got some things to tell you,' said Jo, stirring the bread round and round in the basin. 'I feel goodnow - good and clean and - and all that. But maybe tomorrow I'll feel like I always do - and then Iwouldn't tell you everything. So I'd better tell you now.'
　　'Go ahead,' said Julian.
　　'Well, I let the men into your house here, the night they came,' said Jo. Julian and Dick stared inastonishment. Jo went on stirring her bread round and round.

分享到：