“Did I,” he said to himself, “actually beg her to undress, and then, as soon as she began to do it, act like a madman?”

“I can’t have done that,” he repeated. “I can’t have done that to my little Chris.”

“ The rain seems to have cleared off, doesn’t it? ”

As he made this remark, he felt as if not he at all, but some sardonic Lord Carfax, were making it, in cold-blooded mockery!

“I hadn’t noticed it,” she answered faintly; and then, turning her head towards the window, “Yes,” she said, “it seems to have cleared up.”

“I must be,” thought Wolf, “the most heartless, self-centred brute in Dorsetshire. Mr. Manley must be a considerate man of honour compared with me.”