.

." "But I am sure I've heard," he persisted, raising his voice for the first time since the beginning of this deplorable scene.

Then with a shade of disdain he added, "It wasn't you, then?
Very well; I'll find the other." "Don't be a fool," I cried in exasperation; "it wasn't that at all." "I've heard," he said again with an unshaken and sombre perseverance.
'There may be those who could have laughed at his pertinacity; I didn't.
Oh, I didn't! There had never been a man so mercilessly shown up by his own natural impulse.

A single word had stripped him of his discretion--of that discretion which is more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to the decorum of our body.

"Don't be a fool," I repeated.