Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/206

 I am the most blundering, the most inept, the most selfish, and the most inconsiderate of men! I wish I could convey to you an adequate sense of the humiliation with which I look back upon almost every detail of our acquaintance. If I had seen a man treating a dog with the brutality of which I have been guilty to you, I think I should have sailed in and thrashed him, if only to satisfy my sense of decency.”

“Please don’t, Mr. Sands,” said she. “I — I think I understand.”

“It isn’t only that,” I continued obstinately. “It’s the knowledge that my lamentable blindness, my crass ignorance, and my utter stupidity, have put forever out of my reach the only thing in the world which — “

I might have expected the result. Miss Berrith drew away, crossing to the other side of the road.

“Please, Mr. Sands!” she repeated. “There can be no use in this, no use at all, and such a