What he had to say to her he had determined to say shortly, bravely, with no embroidery of verbiage.
"Frances," he said as he watched her intently, "I heard to-day that Lawson's wife was dead; did you know it?"
Frances straightened in her saddle as if she had been struck. Her eyes, which had been dark and dreamy, flashed. "Yes," she said shortly, "I knew it!"
"Does it make any difference with you?"
"How dare you?"
"It's not a question of daring," he said simply, "but of truth. You remember last winter—" he went on mercilessly.
Frances pulled up her loosened reins. "We had better turn here," she said coldly.
But Montague never moved his hand. "'Turn here'?" He spoke of the way of their love and she read his hidden meaning aright. "Perhaps, but not now. You know, I know that you know, that I value your own happiness beyond my own. I have thought—but maybe your happiness does not lie with me, Frances?"
She was silent, a curve on her lips he had never seen and did not like to see.
"Are you sure?" he persisted.