“Why,” said Knight, recollecting circumstances by degrees, “you surely said you were in some degree engaged to him—and of course you were if he kissed you. And now you say you never encouraged him. And I have been fancying you said—I am almost sure you did—that you were sitting with him ON that tomb. Good God!” he cried, suddenly starting up in anger, “are you telling me untruths? Why should you play with me like this? I’ll have the right of it. Elfride, we shall never be happy! There’s a blight upon us, or me, or you, and it must be cleared off before we marry.” Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her.
She jumped up and clutched his arm
“Don’t go, Harry—don’t!
“Tell me, then,” said Knight sternly. “And remember this, no more fibs, or, upon my soul, I shall hate you. Heavens! that I should come to this, to be made a fool of by a girl’s untruths——”
“Don’t, don’t treat me so cruelly! O Harry, Harry, have pity, and withdraw those dreadful words! I am truthful by nature—I am—and I don’t know how I came to make you misunderstand! But I was frightened!” She quivered so in her perturbation that she shook him with her {Note: sentence incomplete in text.}
“Did you say you were sitting on that tomb?” he asked moodily.
“Yes; and it was true.”
“Then how, in the name of Heaven, can a man sit upon his own tomb?”
“That was another man. Forgive me, Harry, won’t you?”
“What, a lover in the tomb and a lover on it?”