A light compliment seldom afforded her much pleasure, but the man's grim reserve had now and then piqued more than her curiosity, though she was sensible that the efforts she occasionally made to uncover what lay behind it were not without their risk.

Then he came back, and turned to her very gravely.
"Let me have your hand," he said.
Maud Barrington gave it to him, and hoped the curious little thrill that ran through her when his hard fingers closed upon her palm did not communicate itself to him.

She also noticed that he moved his head sharply a moment, and then looked straight in front again.

Then the birches seemed to fall away beneath them, and they moved out across the dim gully with the loosely-laid planking rattling under their feet, until they came to a strip scarcely three feet wide which spanned a gulf of blackness in the shadow of the trees.
"Hold fast!" said Winston, with a trace of hoarseness.

"You are sure you feel quite steady ?" "Of course!" said the girl, with a little laugh, though she recognized the anxiety in his voice, and felt his hand close almost cruelly on her own.