`` Maggie , '' said Lawrence seriously , `` I want to ask you a question . Did Bessy Houghton ever say anything to you about me or did you ever say that she did ? Give me a straight answer . '' The dressmaker peered at him curiously . `` No . Bessy never so much as mentioned your name to me , '' she said , `` and I never heard that she did to anyone else . Why ? '' `` Thank you . That was all I wanted to know , '' said Lawrence , ignoring her question , and disappearing as suddenly as he had come . That evening at moonrise he passed through the kitchen dressed in his Sunday best . His mother met him at the door . `` Where are you going ? '' she asked querulously . Lawrence looked her squarely in the face with accusing eyes , before which her own quailed . `` I 'm going to see Bessy Houghton , Mother , '' he said sternly , `` and to ask her pardon for believing the lie that has kept us apart so long . '' Mrs. Eastman flushed crimson and opened her lips to speak . But something in Lawrence 's grave , white face silenced her . She turned away without a word , knowing in her secret soul that her youngest-born was lost to her forever . Lawrence found Bessy in the orchard under apple trees that were pyramids of pearly bloom . She looked at him through the twilight with reproach and aloofness in her eyes .
But he put out his hands and caught her reluctant ones XXXXX a masterful grasp .
about at before in of through to under with without