Chapter 74

He leant towards her, and, to her intense perplexity, began to pour words of love into her ear. “Teresa,” he said, in a tone she had never heard him use, just as she had never heard him use her Christian name; and she found that he was speaking of the great shadowy bed, and of his desire for her body, and of their solitude and safety, and of the loveliness and suitability of the hour. “They will be stuck at their bridge until at least midnight,” he said, and proceeded to paint a picture of the joys that might be th…