"No, not that."
"That you are over-sensitive, as these sort of people always are?" (with a faint mimicking of Miss Blessington's slow languor of articulation).
"No, not that."
"What then?"
"You must remember the things she said; you were there, and it is not more than five hours ago," she answers, with some impatience.
"I forget every word she uttered except three."
"And what were they?"
"You are free."
"She did not mean them," says Esther, trying to speak with dispassionate calmness; "she was under an erroneous impression when she said them; she will take you back again."
"Take me back again!" he repeats, angrily. "Good heavens, Esther! are you bent on driving me mad? Not satisfied with refusing me point-blank yourself, are you determined to insult me, by forcing upon me a woman for whom, as you know—as you must have known from the first moment you saw us together—I have never felt anything but the profoundest, coldest indifference?"