"You won't tell that you've seen me, or who I am, or anything?" she insisted, half pleading, half threatening.
He turned his face from her to hide the ghastly faintness that was coming over him. "I—I oughtn't to have tried to keep you, when I did," he said.
"No, you oughtn't to," she assented, quickly.
"And I won't speak of you now, if that's what you want."
"Thank you," she said, wondering what had made him turn his back to her.
"You aren't very ill, are you, Mr. Bates?"
"No—you—I only can't get my breath. You'd better go, perhaps."
"Yes, I think I had," she replied.
And she went.
CHAPTER IV.
There are many difficulties in this world which, if we refuse to submit to them, will in turn be subdued by us, but a sprained ankle is not one of them. Robert Trenholme, having climbed a hill after he had twisted his foot, and having, contrary to all advice, used it to some extent the next day, was now fairly conquered by the sprain and destined to be held by this foot for many long days. He explained to his brother who the lady was whom he had taken up the hill, why he himself had first happened to be with her, and that he had slipped with one foot in a roadside ditch, and, thinking to catch her up, had run across a field and so missed the lane in the darkness. This was told in the meagre, prosaic way that left no hint of there being more to tell.