How did he know?
Had he seen her, then?
But he evidently did know, and there was no use to lie.

"I was so--frightened--that--" Tristram took a step nearer and sat down by her side.

He saw the confession was being dragged from her, and he gloried in it and would not help her out.
She moved further from him, then, with grudging reluctance, she continued, "There can be such unpleasant quarrels with those horrible men.

It--was so very late--I--I--wished to be sure that you had come safely in." Then she looked down, and the rose died out of her face, leaving it very white.
And if Tristram's pride in the decision he had come to, on the fatal wedding night, that she must make the first advances before he would again unbend, had not held him, he would certainly have risked everything and clasped her in his arms.

As it was, he resisted the intense temptation to do so, and made himself calm, while he answered, "It mattered to you, then, in some way, that I should not come to harm ?" He was still sitting on the sofa near her, and that magnetic essence which is in propinquity appealed to her; ignorant of all such emotions as she was she only knew something had suddenly made her feel nervous, and that her heart was thumping in her side.
"Yes, of course it mattered," she faltered, and then went on coldly, as he gave a glad start; "scandals are so unpleasant--scenes and all those things are so revolting.