Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/109

 reputation"—he began. "Don't be a fool, man. I've lost my life's happiness, and you'd better take me home." As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was passing round me. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a wind-driven cloud and fall upon me.

Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I was lying in Heatherlegh's bedroom as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table. His first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much moved by them:—"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering pêre, which I've taken the liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with you."

"And Kitty?" I asked.

"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. 'Says she'll die before she even speaks to you again."

I groaned and turned over on the other side.

"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll tell 'em it's fits. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it."

During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the lowest circles of the inferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, what dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering in a voice that I hardly recognized:—

"They're confoundedly particular about morality in these