Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/224

214 "Don't they despise me—don't they hate me? You do yourself! Certainly you'll be glad for me to break off and spare you such a difficulty, such a responsibility."

"I don't understand; it's like some hideous dream!" Gaston Probert cried. "You act as if you were doing something for a wager, and you talk so. I don't believe it—I don't believe a word of it."

"What don't you believe?"

"That you told him—that you told him knowingly. If you'll take that back (it's too monstrous!) if you'll deny it and declare you were practised upon and surprised, everything can still be arranged."

"Do you want me to lie?" asked Francie Dosson. "I thought you would like it."

"Oh, Francie, Francie!" moaned the wretched youth, with tears in his eyes.

"What can be arranged? What do you mean by everything?" she went on.

"Why, they'll accept it; they'll ask for nothing more. It's your participation they can't forgive."

"They can't? Why do you talk to me about them? I'm not engaged to them."

"Oh, Francie, I am! And it's they who are buried beneath that filthy rubbish!"

She flushed at this characterisation of Mr. Flack's epistle; then she said, in a softer voice: "I'm very sorry—very sorry indeed. But evidently I'm not delicate."