"May I smoke?" She said yes; and he did, talking as he smoked, in that clear, gentle, musical voice, which made itself audible above the roar of the train, affecting her as nothing had ever done before. "This is an express, which runs through to town without a stop; we are lucky to have caught it. You look tired." "I am; I don't know why: I have done nothing; but I feel as if I shall never again be anything but tired." "You wait--till you're not tired." He was silent; examining his cigar, which did not seem to be lighted quite to his satisfaction. She thought, hazily, how handsome he looked; handsomer in what seemed, to her, to be his smart attire, even than he had looked in his shirt sleeves on the heath. He went on, speaking rather as if he were soliloquising than addressing himself to her: "Queer world! Yesterday you were non-existent; yet to-day your life has become so intertwined with mine that I feel sure that we must have been associated in some prior state of existence." "That's absurd! My horrid troubles have nothing to do with you--nothing! To you I am only a stranger--a disreputable stranger too." "You're a foolish child." "I may be foolish, but I am not a child--and I wish you wouldn't persist in treating me as if I were a child! I believe you have been doing all the things you have been doing--and ever so many of them you ought not to have done--simply and solely because you think I'm a child. Do get that idea out of your head, I beg of you; I'm quite old enough to be able to take care of myself--and if I'm not able I ought to be. Please, when we reach London, leave me, when we get out of the train, and I'll go to the first policeman I see, and tell him everything there is to tell--I feel sure that if you keep going on as you have been I shall get you into trouble as well as myself, and--and I'd rather anything than that. Why should you suffer because of me?" "When we reach town I'm going to take you to the Vernons'--Frances' father and mother." "Why should you do that? Why should you try to thrust me on people who know nothing about me, and who wouldn't wish to have anything to do with me if they did? Why should they take me in?" "All those whys in one sentence! I never knew such a child for whys. Your fondness for asking questions shows you are a child." "You won't tell me anything unless I do; I have to keep on asking you questions--and even then you don't answer them--I don't know why, but you won't--it's not kind of you!" "The Vernons have a house on the river, not far from Hampton Court; it's a decentish place; you'll find yourself comfortable there." "Shall I--that's all you know! In a stranger's house!--where I know I've no right to be, and feel I'm not wanted!--with that nightmare haunting me!--afraid to look a policeman in the face!--comfortable! Thank you; you don't understand!" "Have you any sense at all?" "You think I haven't; or you wouldn't treat me as you are doing--but I'm not an utter idiot."