They gazed straight across at her with startling directness.
And suddenly Dot's heart gave a great jerk, and stood still.

It was not the first time that those eyes had looked into hers.
The moment passed.

He bent himself over the table, poised for a stroke, which she saw him execute a second later with a delicacy that thrilled her strangely.

Full well did she remember the deftness and the steadiness of those brown hands.

Had they not held her up, sustained her, in the greatest crisis of her life?
Her heart throbbed on again with hard, uneven strokes.