"There are worse things than rudeness, when one thinks of it." "I have no idea to what you refer." "That may be because I know more about you than you think." At this she started guiltily, visibly, and at that start again she appeared before the eye of David's memory gliding through the moonlight at three in the morning, a ghost hastening back to the tomb. Yet, in her presence, the resentment which rankled in him softened to pity. A look of appeal came into her dark eyes, and a certain essence of honesty and purity in her being communicated itself to his instincts, putting it out of his power to think any ill of her for the moment. He said hurriedly: "I fear I have begun badly. All this is neither here nor there." She sat down, slung a knee between her clasped fingers in her habitual manner, and said: "Please tell me, what do you mean?" Then she looked up at him again with a troubled light in her eyes. He walked quickly nearer to her, saying: "Now, don't let that get into your head as a serious statement. It was a mere manner of speaking, what I said, and of no importance. Moreover, there's this question of one hundred pounds, and time is a vital consideration." "Nevertheless, you were definite enough, and must have had some meaning," she went on. "Did I not hear you say that you know more about me than I think? Well, then, have the goodness to tell me what." "Now I have put my foot in it, I suppose," said David, "and you will never rest till I find something to tell you. But not now, if you will bear with me. In a few days I shall, perhaps, call on your mother, or see you again at a place which you no doubt visit pretty often at about the same hour, and to which I, too, somehow am strangely drawn. The question now before us is whether I am to spend the one hundred pounds for you." "As to that, what can one say? You tell me nothing of your reason, my mother is out, and I am afraid that I have not at the moment one hundred pounds of my own. I am about to be married, and--" "Married?" "I am myself rather surprised at it. Yet I fail to see why you should be immoderately surprised." "I? Surprised?" said he in a dazed way, still standing with one foot drawn back a step. "I was merely taken aback, because--" "Well?" "Because--nothing. I was simply taken aback, that's all. Or rather because I had not heard of it before." "It was only fully decided upon yesterday," said she, bending down over her knee. "Oh, only yesterday. And the happy event takes place when? for I am at least interested." "Soon. Within two or three weeks. I don't quite know when." "And the happy man?" "The same whom you saw come to take me from Kensal Green." "Mr. Van Hupfeldt?" "Oh, you know his name. Yes; Mr. Van Hupfeldt." David chuckled grimly. "Why do you laugh?" she asked. "But whatever is your motive?" he cried sharply.