"How sweet, how perfect, Maurice!" "Well ?" in a rather cold, uncompromising way.
Mrs.Bethune gives him a quick glance.
"What a tone!" says she; "you frighten me!" She laughs softly, sweetly.

She draws closer to him--closer still;--and, laying her cheek against his arm, rubs it lightly, caressingly, up and down.
"Look here!" says he quickly, catching her by both arms, and holding her a little away from him; "I have a question to ask you." "There is always a question," says she, smiling still, "between friends and foes, then why not between--_lovers ?"_ She lingers over the word, and, stooping her graceful head, runs her lips lightly across the hand that is holding her right arm.
A shiver runs through Rylton.

Is she true or false?
But, however it goes, how exquisite she is! "And now your question," says she; "how slow you are to ask it.

Now _what_ is it ?--what--what ?" "Shall I ask it, Marian?
I have asked it too often before." He is holding her arms very tightly now, and his eyes are bent on hers.

Once again he is under the spell of her beauty.
"Ask--ask what you will!" cries she.