"There's nothing more to tell 'ee, sir, only that I, contrairywise, came here to the old garden and climbed the wall, I did, and sometimes I did come here of nights when the moon was shining and it was then I see 'ee, sir, working here, bending over your work—and I knew—knew—" she paused.
"You knew——?"
"I knew as—as oh I—I can't tell 'ee, sir, I daren't tell 'ee."
"Tell me, Betty," he whispered, "tell me," and perhaps did not know how much tenderness he had put into his voice.
"I knew as 'ee meant summut to me, sir, as—as somehow it seemed as if 'ee belonged to me and I to thee."
She dropped her eyes, her hands seemed to flutter in his and he said nothing, could not, for he did not know what to say, but he realised that she had put into words that which was in his own mind, in his own knowledge, just as he had meant something to her so had she meant something to him. He had known that in some strange way they belonged to each other.
He spoke, to break the silence that had fallen rather than for any other reason.
"You were unhappy with your grandmother?"
"Terribul, terribul unhappy I were wi' she, sir, for her willed me to marry Abram."
"Abram?" he asked.