At last she turned round to him and asked him what she had asked him before:
"What do you come after me for?"
"I don't know," he said.
"It isn't because you love me."
"I don't know."
"I know--there's no mistakin' it when it's there. I've lain awake a lot o' nights wondering what you're after. You must have your reasons. You take a deal o' trouble."
Then she put her hand on his. It was the first time that she had ever, of her own accord, touched him.
"I'm gettin' to like you," she said. "Seein' so much of you, I suppose. You're only a boy when all's said. And then, somehow or another, men don't go after me. You're the only one that ever has. They say I'm stuck up... Oh, man, but I'm unhappy here at home!"
"Well, then--you'd better come away with me--to London."
Even as he said it he would have caught the words back. What use for them to go? Nothing to live on, no true companionship ...there could be only one end to that.