Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/103

Rh away by an annoyance really much greater; an annoyance the result of its happening to come over me about that time with a rush that I was simply ashamed of Frank Saltram. There were limits after all, and my mark at last had been reached.

I had had my disgusts, if I may allow myself to-day such an expression; but this was a supreme revolt. Certain things cleared up in my mind, certain values stood out. It was all very well to have an unfortunate temperament; there was nothing so unfortunate as to have, for practical purposes, nothing else. I avoided George Gravener at this moment, and reflected that at such a time I should do so most effectually by leaving England. I wanted to forget Frank Saltram—that was all. I didn't want to do any thing in the world to him but that. Indignation had withered on the stalk, and I felt that one could pity him as much as one ought only by never thinking of him again. It wasn't for any thing he had done to me; it was for something he had done to the Mulvilles. Adelaide had cried about it for a week, and her husband, profiting by the example so signally given him of the fatal effect of the want of a character, left the letter unanswered. The letter, an incredible one, addressed by Saltram to Wimbledon, during a stay with the Pudneys at Ramsgate, was the central feature of the incident; which, however, had many features, each more painful than whichever other we compared it with. The Pudneys had