"It's always 'jam to-morrow,' isn't it?
You'd better take care she doesn't give you the slip altogether!"-- smilingly.
Very often, since then, he would sit watching Nan with a sullen, brooding look in his eyes, and on occasion he seemed a prey to morose suspicion, when he would question her dictatorially as to what she had been doing since they had last met.

At times he was roughly tender with her, abruptly passionate and demanding, and she grew to dread these moods even more than his outbreaks of temper.
It was now more than ever impossible for her to respond, and only yesterday, when he had suddenly caught her in his arms, kissing her fiercely yet feeling her lips lie stiff and unresponsive beneath his own, he had almost flung her from him.

Then, gripping her by the arm until the delicate flesh showed red and bruised beneath the pressure, he had said savagely: "By God, Nan! I'll make you love me--or break you!" Nan turned back her sleeve and looked at the red weals now darkening into a bruise which his grasp had made on the white skin of her arm.
Then she re-read the letter in her hand.

It bore yesterday's date and was very brief.
"I'm hoping to get out of town very soon now, and I propose to come down and inspect my new property with a view to re-decorating the house.

I could never live with dear godfather's Early Victorian chairs and tables! So you may expect to see me almost any day now on the doorstep of Mallow Court.
"Yours as always.
"MARYON." Nan's first impulse was to beg him not to come.