“Sir, this is my affair, not yours. I beg leave to say that you know nothing whatever of the circumstances.”
“Indeed, I know a great deal about them, and I can reasonably deduce a great deal more.”
“And pray, sir, what do you deduce?”
“The right of Denas Penelles to have been retained as your companion. Having made a certain refinement of life necessary to her, you ought in common justice to have supplied the want you created.”
“All this trouble arose when I was on my wedding-trip.”
“I think you ought to have taken her with you.”
“Sir!”
“I think so. It was hard to be suddenly deprived of every social pleasure and refinement and sent back to a fisher’s cottage to cure fish, and knot nets, and knit fishing-shirts. How could you have borne it?”
“Mr. Farrar, such a comparison is an insult.”
“I mean no insult; far from it. Even my office would give me no right to insult you. I only wish 167 to awaken your conscience. Even yet it may take up your abandoned duty.”