"Ruth," he said, and he took her hands, "there is here something that I do not understand.

What is't you mean ?" "Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you." "But what has Newlington to do with...?
Nay, I am pledged already to go." She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders.

"Yet if I ask you--I, your wife ?" she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of her own, she had so pleaded.

He laughed softly, mockingly.
"Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me ?" She drew back from him, crimsoning.

"I think I had better go," said she.
"You have nothing but mockery for me.