I rose directly to approach him.

Naomi recovered her self-possession, and checked me before I could interfere.
"Who are you ?" she asked, turning sharply toward the stranger.

"What do you want there ?" The man stepped out from the shadow into the moonlight, and stood revealed to us as John Jago.
"I hope I am not intruding ?" he said, looking hard at me.
"What do you want ?" Naomi repeated.
"I don't wish to disturb you, or to disturb this gentleman," he proceeded.

"When you are quite at leisure, Miss Naomi, you would be doing me a favor if you would permit me to say a few words to you in private." He spoke with the most scrupulous politeness; trying, and trying vainly, to conceal some strong agitation which was in possession of him.

His wild brown eyes--wilder than ever in the moonlight--rested entreatingly, with a strange underlying expression of despair, on Naomi's face.