convicted yourself out of your own mouth!"

"Wait a moment, my dear. I have not read the letter yet."

He rose and walked to and fro through the room, reading. She watched
him, angrily confident that she should presently see him change
countenance. Suddenly he drooped as if his spine had partly given way;
and in this ungraceful attitude he read the remainder of the letter.
When he had finished he threw it on the table, thrust his hands deep
into his pockets, and roared with laughter, huddling himself together as
if he could concentrate the joke by collecting himself into the smallest
possible compass. Henrietta, speechless with indignation, could only
look her feelings. At last he came and sat down beside her.

"And so," he said, "on receiving this you rushed out in the cold and
came all the way to Lyvern. Now, it seems to me that you must either
love me very much--"

"I don't. I hate you."

"Or else love yourself very much."

"Oh!" And she wept afresh. "You are a selfish brute, and you do just as
you like without considering anyone else. No one ever thinks of me. And
now you won't even take the trouble to deny that shameful letter."

"Why should I deny it? It is true. Do you not see the irony of all this?
I amuse myself by paying a few compliments to a schoolgirl for whom I
do not care two straws more than for any agreeable and passably clever
woman I meet. Nevertheless, I occasionally feel a pang of remorse