"Do _you_ think there's any harm in my going about with Mrs.Lascelles because I rather like her and she rather likes me?
I won't condescend to give you my word that I mean none." What answer could I give?
His charming frankness quite disarmed me, and the more completely because I felt that a dignified reticence would have been yet more characteristic of this clean, sweet youth, with his noble unconsciousness alike of evil and of evil speaking.

I told him the truth--that there could be no harm at all with such a fellow as himself.
And he wrung my hand until he hurt it; but the physical pain was a relief.
Never can I remember going up to bed with a better opinion of another person, or a worse one of myself.

How could I go on with my thrice detestable undertaking?
Now that I was so sure of him, why should I even think of it for another moment?
Why not go back to London and tell his mother that her early confidence had not been misplaced, that the lad did know how to take care of himself, and better still of any woman whom he chose to honour with his bright, pure-hearted friendship?
All this I felt as strongly as any conviction I have ever held.

Why, then, could I not write it at once to Catherine in as many words?
Strange how one forgets, how I had forgotten in half an hour! The reason came home to me on the stairs, and for the second time.
It had come home first by the light of those two matches, struck outside in the dark part of the deserted terrace.

It was not the lad whom I distrusted, but the woman of whose face I had then obtained my only glimpse--that night.
I had known her, after all, in India years before..