absence of all emotion from his face chilling her till her face
blanched:

'I don't think I would worry about it!'

Stephen Norman was plucky, and when she was face to face with any
difficulty she was all herself. Leonard did not look pleasant; his
face was hard and there was just a suspicion of anger. Strangely
enough, this last made the next step easier to the girl; she said
slowly:

'All right! I think I understand!'

He turned from her and stood looking out on the distant prospect.
Then she felt that the blow which she had all along secretly feared
had fallen on her. But her pride as well as her obstinacy now
rebelled. She would not accept a silent answer. There must be no
doubt left to torture her afterwards. She would take care that there
was no mistake. Schooling herself to her task, and pressing one hand
for a moment to her side as though to repress the beating of her
heart, she came behind him and touched him tenderly on the arm.

'Leonard,' she said softly, 'are you sure there is no mistake? Do
you not see that I am asking you,' she intended to say 'to be my
husband,' but she could not utter the words, they seemed to stick in
her mouth, so she finished the sentence: 'that I be your wife?'

The moment the words were spoken--the bare, hard, naked, shameless
words--the revulsion came. As a lightning flash shows up the
blackness of the night the appalling truth of what she had done was