“Folks say it's only a matter of time,” said he. “Made up your mind to take him, Cynthy? M-made up your mind?”
“You've no right to talk to me in this way,” she said, and added, the words seeming to slip of themselves from her lips, “Why do you do it?”
“Because I'm—interested,” he said.
“You haven't shown it,” she flashed back, forgetting the place, and the storm, and her errand even, forgetting that Jake Wheeler, or any one in Coniston, might come and surprise her there.
He took a step toward her, and she retreated. The light struck her face, and he bent over her as though searching it for a sign. The cape on her shoulders rose and fell as she breathed.
“'Twahn't charity, Cynthy—was it? 'Twahn't charity?”
“It was you who called it such,” she answered, in a low voice.
A sleet-charged gust hurled itself against the door, and the lantern flickered.
“Wahn't it charity.”
“It was friendship, Jethro. You ought to have known that, and you should not have brought back the book.”