"Very much so, if you force me to say it."
"I think they need trouble you no farther."
"I thought that possibly you might be sensible of a certain obligation to me," he began.
"I am deeply sensible of it. Are you pleased to tell me what will settle this debt between us?"
He turned squarely toward me and looked me keenly in the eye. "I have told you. Turn about and go home. That is all."
"I do not understand you."
"But I understand your position perfectly."
"Meaning?"
"That your affections are engaged with a highly respectable young lady back at your home in Virginia. Wait—" he raised his hand as I turned toward him. "Meaning also," he went on, "that your affections are apparently also somewhat engaged with an equally respectable young lady who is not back home in Virginia. Therefore—"
He caught my wrist in a grip of steel as I would have struck him. I saw then that I still was weak.