Oh, Peter, Peter!" This use of his Christian name struck him
absolutely dumb, so that he was unable to utter a syllable. He should,
first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling
him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening
for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to
say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn me
into ridicule glibly enough."
"I have never done so."
"Did you not write to Joe Thoroughbung, and tell him you had given up
all thoughts of having me?"
"Joe!" he exclaimed. His very surprise did not permit him to go farther,
at the moment, than this utterance of the young man's Christian name.
"Yes, Joe,--Joe Thoroughbung, my nephew, and yours that is to be. Did you
not write and tell him that everything was over?"
"I never wrote to young Mr. Thoroughbung in my life. I should not have
dreamed of such a correspondence on such a subject."
"Well, he says you did. Or, if you didn't write to Joe himself, you
wrote to somebody."
"I may have written to somebody, certainly."
"And told them that you didn't mean to have anything farther to say to
me?" That traitor Harry had now committed a sin worse that knocking a
man down in the middle of the night and leaving him bleeding,
speechless, and motionless; worse than telling a lie about it;--worse
even than declining to listen to sermons read by his uncle.
Pages:
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687