Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/210

 LECTURE XXXI.

MRS. CAUDLE COMPLAINS VERY BITTERLY THAT MR. CAUDLE HAS "BROKEN HER CONFIDENCE."

YOU'LL catch me, Mr. Caudle, telling you anything again. Now, I don't want to have any noise: I don't wish you to put yourself in a passion. All I say is this; never again do I open my lips to you about anybody. No: if man and wife can't be one, why there's an end of everything. Oh, you know well what I mean, Mr. Caudle: you've broken my confidence in the most shameful, the most heartless way, and I repeat it—I can never be again to you as I have been. No: the little charm—it wasn't much—that remained about married life, is gone for ever. Yes; the bloom's quite wiped off the plum now.

"Don't be such a hypocrite, Caudle; don't ask me what I mean! Mrs. Badgerly has been here—more like a fiend, I'm sure, than a quiet woman. I haven't done trembling yet! You know the state of my nerves, too; you know—yes, sir, I had nerves when you married me; and I haven't just found 'em out. Well, you've something to answer for, I think. The Badgerlys are going to separate: she takes the girls, and he the boys, and all