Had the person she had indistinctly seen leaving the house anything to do with the performance?
It was impossible to say without appealing to the culprit himself, and that she would never do.

The more Elfride reflected, the more certain did it appear that the meeting was a chance rencounter, and not an appointment.

On the ultimate inquiry as to the individuality of the woman, Elfride at once assumed that she could not be an inferior.
Stephen Smith was not the man to care about passages-at-love with women beneath him.

Though gentle, ambition was visible in his kindling eyes; he evidently hoped for much; hoped indefinitely, but extensively.
Elfride was puzzled, and being puzzled, was, by a natural sequence of girlish sensations, vexed with him.

No more pleasure came in recognizing that from liking to attract him she was getting on to love him, boyish as he was and innocent as he had seemed.
They reached the bridge which formed a link between the eastern and western halves of the parish.