"Everything, I tell you!"
"In the name of wonder! how?"
She gave no answer. The quiet of the hour took up their hurried, low-pitched murmurs as blotting-paper takes up ink. They stood without moving, close together, like lovers. He was aware of the hastened movement of her bosom, and though the glow from below was too feeble to read her face by, fancied that her eyes were louring.
"Tell me how you know . . ."
"Please! you hurt." She made him loose her wrists, yet did not move beyond his reach. "Enough that I do know," her whisper insisted. "My name may be Folly, but I'll prove to you yet I'm far from a fool."
"You claim that," Lanyard retorted, "yet you're going to marry Morphew—"
"And you believe it!" She laughed bitterly. "Now you tell me, which of us is the fool?"
"It was you who informed me. How do I know what or what not to believe? I'm like a man newly blinded, groping my way round a strange house, hoping against hope to find a friend's hand—"
"Here . . ."
Lanyard set his lips to the hand Folly flung him, and folded it between his own.