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‘O, then I ought to have done it, to have done it last night! But I hadn’t the courage. That’s just like me!’

‘The courage to do what?’

As she did not answer he took her by the hand.

‘What were you thinking of doing?’ he inquired.

‘Of putting an end to myself.’

‘When?’

She writhed under this inquisitorial manner of his. ‘Last night,’ she answered.

‘Where?’

‘Under your mistletoe.’

‘My good—! how?’ he asked sternly.

‘I’ll tell you, if you won’t be angry with me!’ she said shrinking. ‘It was with the cord of my box. But I could not—do the last thing! I was afraid that it might cause a scandal to your name.’

The unexpected quality of this confession, wrung from her, and not volunteered, shook him indescribably. But he still held her, and, letting his glance fall from her face downwards, he said—