"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. N-nothing!"
He could hear her thin, harsh breathing, shaking the words and stumbling on them with the accents of terror. He struck a match and held it up.
At first she refused to turn round and face him. When she did so, after the first match had burnt down and another was struck, she was smiling — but not very convincingly.
Her thin frock had been ripped down partly from the left shoulder, exposing the white silk slip and outlining the breast. A bruise was beginning to show on her neck under the left ear. Her thick hair, which she wore bound round her head, was slightly loosened; hairpins showed in it. There were grass-stains on her dress at the knees, and on the rumpled tan silk stockings underneath. She was bedraggled, grimy, obviously frightened — but trying to carry it off as though nothing had happened.
"Don't make a noise!" she urged. "I'm p-perfectly all right. Do put out that match. No, don't. Light another."
"But what—"
"It was someone. A man."
"What man?"
"I d-don't know." She passed the back of her hand across her forehead. "He caught me from behind and put his hand over my mouth. He — anyway, I fought loose and yelled. He got his hand on my mouth again. I think I bit his hand, but I'm not sure. When he heard you coming, he must have…"