"Jim, I want to ask a question. Have you seen or heard of Mark?"
Jim looked cross.
"He's in Sutherland."
"Go on, please."
"He doesn't answer my letters," said Jim, after a pause.
"He writes to nobody."
"Did you expect him to write?"
"Yes, I did," said Betty vehemently. "If it had been an ordinary man, but Mark—Heavens! Why should I beat about the bush with you, Jim? Once I wanted to marry Mark! You know that. But he didn't want—me."
She paused, blushing, her eyes, pools of brown light, opened wide with their strange look: entreating, interrogating.
"Which was a woman's reason, I suppose, for engaging yourself to somebody who did."