And straightway he did dismiss it, to return to thoughts of his significant present.
"Bess, tell me one more thing," he said.

"Haven't you known any women--any young people ?" "Sometimes there were women with the men; but Oldring never let me know them.

And all the young people I ever saw in my life was when I rode fast through the villages." Perhaps that was the most puzzling and thought-provoking thing she had yet said to Venters.

He pondered, more curious the more he learned, but he curbed his inquisitive desires, for he saw her shrinking on the verge of that shame, the causing of which had occasioned him such self-reproach.

He would ask no more.