‘Stop, and let me speak to you,’ he exclaimed.

She walked only the more quickly, and he was obliged to take her by the arm.

‘What do you want?’

She spoke as if to an insolent stranger, and shook off his grasp.

‘If you have nothing to say to me, why are you here?’

‘Here?  I suppose the streets are free to me?’

’Nothing would bring you to Great College Street if you didn’t know that I was living here.  Now that we have met, we must talk.’

‘I have nothing at all to say to you.’

’Well, then I will talk.—­Come this way; there’s a quiet place where no one will notice us.’

Nancy kept her eyes resolutely averted from him; he, the while, searched her face with eagerness, as well as the faint rays of the nearest lamp allowed it.

‘If you have anything to say, you must say it here.’

‘It’s no use, then.  Go your way, and I’ll go mine.’

He turned, and walked slowly in the direction of Dean’s Yard.  There was the sound of a step behind him, and when he had come into the dark, quiet square, Nancy was there too.

‘Better to be reasonable,’ said Tarrant, approaching her again.  ’I want to ask you why you answered a well-meant letter with vulgar insult?’

‘The insult came from you,’ she answered, in a shaking voice.

‘What did I say that gave you offence?’

’How can you ask such a question?  To write in that way after never answering my letter for months, leaving me without a word at such a time, making me think either that you were dead or that you would never let me hear of you again—­’

’I told you it was a mere note, just to let you know I was back.  I said you should hear more when we met.’

‘Very well, we have met.  What have you to say for yourself?’

’First of all, this.  That you are mistaken in supposing I should ever consent to share your money.  The thought was natural to you, no doubt; but I see things from a different point of view.’

His cold anger completely disguised the emotion stirred in him by Nancy’s presence.  Had he not spoken thus, he must have given way to joy and tenderness.  For Nancy seemed more beautiful than the memory he had retained of her, and even at such a juncture she was far from exhibiting the gross characteristics attributed to her by his rebellious imagination.

‘Then I don’t understand,’ were her next words, ’why you wrote to me again at all.’

’There are many things in me that you don’t understand, and can’t understand.’

‘Yes, I think so.  That’s why I see no use in our talking.’

Tarrant was ashamed of what he had said—­a meaningless retort, which covered his inability to speak as his heart prompted.

’At all events I wanted to see you, and it’s fortunate you passed just as I was coming out.’

Nancy would not accept the conciliatory phrase.