"You think it might alter ANYBODY'S feelings, then ?" "Nobody's who really loved another"-- he stammered.
"Don't let us talk of it any more," she said suddenly stretching out her arms, lifting them above her head with a wearied gesture, and then letting them fall clasped before her in her old habitual fashion.

"It makes my head ache; what with Paw and Maw and the rest of them--I'm sick of it all." She turned away as Ford drew back coldly and let her hand fall from his arm.

She took a few steps forward, stopped, ran back to him again, crushed his face and head in a close embrace, and then seemed to dip like a bird into the tall bracken, and was gone.
The master stood for some moments chagrined and bewildered; it was characteristic of his temperament that he had paid less heed to what she told him than what he IMAGINED had passed between her mother and herself.

She was naturally jealous of the letters--he could forgive her for that; she had doubtless been twitted about them, but he could easily explain them to her parents--as he would have done to her.

But he was not such a fool as to elope with her at such a moment, without first clearing his character--and knowing more of hers.