"Nonsense, sir. Don't talk to me in that way. As if I didn't know
where your heart was. What right had you to speak to me if you had an
L. D. down in the country?"

It should be here declared on behalf of poor John Eames that he had
not ever spoken to Amelia--he had not spoken to her in any such
phrase as her words seemed to imply. But then he had written to her
a fatal note of which we will speak further before long, and that
perhaps was quite as bad,--or worse.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Johnny. But the laugh was assumed, and not
assumed with ease.

"Yes, sir; it's a laughing matter to you, I dare say. It is very easy
for a man to laugh under such circumstances;--that is to say, if he
is perfectly heartless,--if he's got a stone inside his bosom instead
of flesh and blood. Some men are made of stone, I know, and are
troubled with no feelings."

"What is it you want me to say? You pretend to know all about it, and
it wouldn't be civil in me to contradict you."

"What is it I want? You know very well what I want; or rather, I
don't want anything. What is it to me? It is nothing to me about L.
D. You can go down to Allington and do what you like for me. Only I
hate such ways."

"What ways, Amelia?"