"Looking back I can't say much about what I felt. I only knew I was very wishful to win her if possible, and I soon found she was quite agreeable. Always pleasant, cool, collected she was. She liked me and had an easy, friendly manner; yet I'll swear she always held herself a cut above me. She never said so, perhaps she didn't even think so, but unconsciously she let me feel, somehow, that was in her mind. Not that I cared. I was in a stage to her then that I thought so too. My havage was of no account, and I felt she was superior, along of education and natural quick wits. An old head on young shoulders she had. I do believe most honest that she cared for me, and felt happy to think she was going to share my life and push on my business. But from the day we got tokened she didn't turn half so much to love-making as work. And I wasn't the soft, cuddling sort neither; and if anything could have drawed me to her more than I was drawed, it would have been the fashion she set to mastering my business and all its details. She took it up with all her wits, and soon showed that she was a masterpiece at it. She liked business and she had a head for saving. She understood more about money than I did, though I thought myself pretty clever at it. But I felt a gawk beside her, and she soon showed me how to make more. In fact, her thoughts soared higher than mine from the start, and I knew I'd have such a right hand in that matter as few men in my position could ever have expected. "I think I knew my luck, and it suited me very well, as I say, that she didn't want a lot of love-making, for I was busy as a bee and not given to that sort of thing. And she was on the cold side too--so I reckoned. In fact she made it clear in words. For she'd thought about that, like most subjects. She held the business of love-making and babies and so on was only a small part of life, and that men thought a lot too much about that side of marriage and took women too seriously. She said certain things with an object, and gave me an opening to ax a few questions; but I was too green to take up the hint, and she said afterwards that she thought I agreed with her. "We were married and started in the train for our honeymoon. We was going to Exeter for a week and then coming home again, for neither of us had much use for honeymooning, but felt full of business. "We had a carriage to ourselves by the kindness of the guard--a Barnstaple man. And we talked. And when I got out of the train at Exeter, I left her; and I've never seen her again and never shall. She was a stranger woman to me for evermore." He was silent for a time, but Dinah said nothing.