"I! If you dare hint such a damnable shame to my face again, I will wring your neck with as little remorse as I would a kite's.

I believe in his guilt?
Forgive me, Cecil, that I can even repeat the word! I believe in it?
I would as soon believe in my own disgrace--in my father's dishonor!" "How will your lordship account, then, for Mr.Cecil's total inability to tell us know he spent the hours between six and nine on the 15th ?" "Unable?
He is not unable; he declines! Bertie, tell me what you did that one cursed evening.

Whatever it was, wherever it was, say it for my sake, and shame this devil." Cecil would more willingly have stood a line of leveled rifle-tubes aimed at his heart than that passionate entreaty from the man he loved best on earth.

He staggered slightly, as if he were about to fall, and a faint white foam came on his lips; but he recovered himself almost instantly.

It was so natural to him to repress every emotion that it was simply old habit to do so now.
"I have answered," he said very low, each word a pang--"I cannot." Baroni waved his hand again with the same polite, significant gesture.
"In that case, then, there is but one alternative.