"What sort of women can you have lived among?
what a hateful mind you must have! And I thought that you were a nice fellow, and that we were all so comfortable together!" He has drawn back a pace or two, and now stands leaning against one of the bent and writhen trunks of the old trees.

He is still as pale as the dead, and looks all the paler for the burning darkness of his eyes.
"Is it possible," he says, in a low tone of but half-suppressed fury, "that you are going to _pretend_ to be surprised ?" "_Pretend!_" cry I, vehemently; "there is no pretense about it! I never was so horribly, miserably surprised in all my life!" And then, thinking of Barbara, I fall to weeping again, in utter bitterness and discomfiture.
"It is _impossible_!" he says, roughly.

"Whatever else you are, you are no fool; and a woman would have had to be blinder than any mole not to see whither I--yes, and _you_, too--have been tending! If you meant to be _surprised_ all along when it came to this, why did you make yourself common talk for the neighborhood with me?
Why did you press me, with such unconventional eagerness to visit you?
Why did you reproach me if I missed one day ?" "_Why did I ?_" cry I, eagerly.

"Because--" Then I stop suddenly.

How, even to clear myself, can I tell him my real reason?
"And now," he continues, with deepening excitement, "now that you reap your own sowing, you are _surprised--miserably surprised_!" "I am!" cry I, incoherently.