"Then you are against her too," he uttered, under his breath. "I might have known it, I might have known it. I am a lost man."
It was pitiful. "Lost fiddlesticks!" I snapped back at him, with bared teeth. "I wouldn't—I've never harmed a fly. Who, I should like to know, came to my help when...?" But I choked down the words. Silence fell between us. The idiot clock chimed five. He turned his face away to conceal the aversion that had suddenly overwhelmed him at sight of me.
"I see," he said, in a hollow, low voice, with his old wooden, artificial dignity. "There's nothing more to say. I can only thank you, and be gone. I had not realized. You misjudge her. You haven't the—— How could it be expected? But there! thinking's impossible."
How often had I seen my poor father in his last heavy days draw his hand across his eyes like that? Already my fickle mind was struggling to find words with which to retract, to explain away that venomous outbreak. But I let him go. The stooping, hatted figure hastened past my window; and I was never to see him again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Yet, in spite of misgivings, no very dark foreboding companioned me that evening. With infinite labour I concocted two letters:—
"Dear Mr Crimble,—I regret my words this afternoon. Bitterly. Indeed I do. But still truth is important, isn't it? One we know hasn't been too kind to either of us. I still say that. And if it seems inconsiderate, please remember Shakespeare's lines about the beetle (which I came across in a Birthday Book the other day)—a creature I detest. Besides, we can return good for evil—I can't help this sounding like hypocrisy—even though it is an extremely tiring exchange. I feel small enough just now, but would do anything in the world that would help in the way we both want. I hope that you will believe this and that you will forgive my miserable tongue. Believe me, ever yours sincerely,—M. M."
My second letter was addressed to Fanny's school, "℅ Miss Stebbings":—