Why, even I, who am used to women and their pretty ways and their passions and their flushings and their stormy upbraidings, didn't quite know for a while what she was driving at.

So at last she spoke out pretty plainly, and told me what a fond wife she'd make me if I would only take her!' Harold said nothing; he only rocked a little as one in pain, and his hands fell.
The other went on: 'That is what happened this morning on Caester Hill under the trees where I met Stephen Norman by her own appointment; honestly what happened.

If you don't believe me now you can ask Stephen.

My Stephen!' he added in a final burst of venom as in a gleam of moonlight through a rift in the shadowy wood he saw the ghastly pallor of Harold's face.

Then he added abruptly as he held out his hand: 'Now give me my letter!' In the last few seconds Harold had been thinking.