"I thought, perhaps, it was not true. That is why I was determined to have this opportunity for a talk."
She did most of the talking while he barely listened, being conscious only of the thumping of his capitulating heart. But neither made any allusion to the tender episode on the verandah, from which Jack dated his undoing.
In a quiet lane where the shadows lay deepest, he was asked to strike a match. Convicted of lack of courtesy, Jack hurriedly produced his cigarette case and offered it to her with confused apologies.
"No thanks. Only a lighted match. I want to show you something," she said plaintively. And while he struck a light she rolled back her silk sleeve and displayed for his benefit a purple bruise on her shoulder where it curved down to the arm; an ugly, evil-looking thing staining the marble purity of the flesh.
"How did that happen?" he asked greatly shocked and very sympathetic.
"Can't you guess?"
"Good God!—is it possible? Is he such a cad as all that?" What else was Jack to think?
"Perhaps I had better say no more about it, only I thought you had better know." Only the inference was possible, and Jack stood stock-still burning with indignant fury that a woman should be subjected to such brutality at the hands of a man. The match burned down to his finger-tips and fell to the ground leaving the two in the shadows of the silent road.
"It makes me feel pretty mad—what can I do?" he asked helplessly as she drew the sleeve down.
"You can do nothing—but give me a little tenderness and love," she said with a sob, letting him take her in his arms.