"Yes, you are," he said gruffly.

"You're going to beat me with that stick." The shrewdness of this surmise struck her as not without humour.

She smiled, and, turning, flung the stick straight down to the path below.
"Now!" she said.
He came forward, not very willingly, and stood within a couple of yards of her, still looking as if he expected some sort of chastisement.
She faced him, and the last of her fear departed.

Though he was so terribly deformed that he looked like some dreadful beast reared on its hind legs there was that about the face, sullen though it was, that stirred her deepest feelings.
She did her best to conceal the fact, however.

"Tell me why you threw those stones!" she said.
"Because I wanted to hit you," he returned with disconcerting promptitude.
She looked at him steadily.