"Let us not speak of amusements in the absence of each other," she said bitterly. "Think of your own. But when you came back, it was all as it was last spring. I could love no other man but you, Jack, and you know it. After all, if we are quits, let us stay quits, and forgive, and forget—let us forget, Jack."
I sat looking at her as she turned to me, pleading, imploring in her face, her gesture.
"Jack," she went on, "a woman needs some one to take care of her, to love her. I want you to take care of me—you wouldn't throw me over for just a little thing—when all the time you yourself—"
"The light shone for miles across the valley," said I.
"Precisely, and that was how he happened to come up, I do not doubt. He thought we were still up about the place. My father has always told him to make this his home, and not to go to the tavern. They are friends politically, in many ways, as you know."
"The light then was that of some servant?"
"Certainly it was. I know nothing of it. It was an accident, and yet you blame me as though—why, it was all accident that you met Captain Orme. Tell me, Jack, did you quarrel? What did he tell you?"
"Many things. He is no fit man for you to know, nor for any woman."
"Do I not know that? I will never see him again."
"No, he will never come back here again, that is fairly sure. He has promised that; and he asked me to promise one thing, by the way."