For the first time he moved, withdrawing himself from the table and standing up; he was so thin, there was something about him which was so little human, that the ill-assorted, filthy rags of which his attire consisted seemed to be hanging on a scarecrow. "You feel that you can trust me?" "I am sure of it." "Knowing my record?" "Records like yours don't count in my eye. There's nothing in your record which hints that you ever played false to a woman. I know that you won't play false to me." "You expect me to tell you that I know you'll never play false to me?" "Not a bit of it; I know what you've got in your head quite well. I don't ask you to trust me one inch farther than you can see. But at the beginning, at any rate, the confidence will be all on the other side. I'm willing to make an investment for which my only security is faith in you. When you know what these little schemes are of which I have spoken as being in my head, you'll see that it isn't trust I'm asking for; that what I propose is merely a matter of plain and open dealing, in which no question of trust or mistrust can arise on either side. Once more, is it a deal? Are you going back to carrying sandwich-boards in the Strand at a shilling a day in weather like this; with the certainty of there being certain intervals in which you'll be even without a sandwich-board; or are you willing to get something out of the world in return for what it's done for you; to throw black care to the dogs, and laugh with me? Which do you choose--the sty and the swine, cold, hunger and misery; or as good a time as ever a gentleman had? England was made by freebooters; I'm suggesting that you should be a freebooter up to date. As things are, a man can choose no other life which gives much promise of adventure." There was silence; although she waited for him to speak, the silence remained unbroken. Presently he turned, and looked through the window at the snow which had begun to fall fast, and was being driven here and there by the shrieking wind; then he turned again, and looked at her and at the fire. He still said nothing; but he shivered; and she said: "I see that you have chosen." CHAPTER XI In the Wood "I Don't think I need tell you that this is a very severe blow to me; it almost knocks me out, but not quite; there's some fight still left in me. There's one thing which I should take it as a very great favour if you would tell me; have you said--what you have done, because--there's someone else? I know I've no right to ask such a question, but--I can't help it."