From the time I came to know you as a young woman, in the bloom of a young woman's beauty, I said to myself, 'That's the girl I'll marry, and no other.' Your father can bear me out in that, for I said the same to him.

And finding that I had his approval, I was satisfied to bide my time, and wait till you came round to the same way of thinking.

Your father tells me yesterday afternoon, and again this afternoon, that you have come round to that way of feeling.

I hope he hasn't deceived me, Miss Carley." This was a very long speech for Stephen Whitelaw.

It was uttered in little gasps or snatches of speech, the speaker stopping at the end of every sentence to take breath.
Ellen Carley sat on that side of the comfortable round table most remote from Mr.Whitelaw, deadly pale, with her hands clasped before her.