“Well! Perhaps one,” said Bella. “I am sure I don’t know. I had one, but what he may think about it at the present time I can’t say. Perhaps I have half a one (of course I don’t count that Idiot, George Sampson). However, never mind me. I want to hear about you.”

“There is a certain man,” said Lizzie, “a passionate and angry man, who says he loves me, and who I must believe does love me. He is the friend of my brother. I shrank from him within myself when my brother first brought him to me; but the last time I saw him he terrified me more than I can say.” There she stopped.

“Did you come here to escape from him, Lizzie?”

“I came here immediately after he so alarmed me.”

“Are you afraid of him here?”