This was quite a random shot, but it told.
'He sent me one letter—not in his own handwriting,' Madge confessed, diffidently.
'Show it to me!'
'I can't. I burned it. I was afraid. Tom, you wouldn't get the poor fellow into trouble!'
'I've no patience with you!' he said angrily. 'Why can't you be fair and aboveboard? Why don't you send the fellow about his business at once——'
'Well, I have.'
'Why don't you settle the thing straight? You know Frank King wants to marry you: anybody can see that. Why don't you have him, and be done with it?'
Madge turned away a little, and said with a very pretty smile,
'And so I would, if he would ask me.'
Well, Mr. Tom thought he knew something of the ways of womankind, from having been brought up among so many; but this fairly took his breath away. He stared at her. He laid down his cue.