Oh, why, if I _must_ lie, do not I do it with a bold and voluble assurance?
whom would my starved pinched falsehood deceive?
"You mean to say," speaking with irrepressible excitement, while the wrathful light gathers and grows intenser in the gray depths of his eyes, "that this--this _interview_ never took place?
that it is all a delusion; a mistake ?" "Yes." I repeat it mechanically now.

Having gone thus far, I must go on, but I feel giddy and sick, and my hands grasp the arms of my chair.

I feel as if I should fall out of it if they did not.
"You are _sure_ ?" speaking with a heavy emphasis, and looking persistently at me, while the anger of his eyes is dashed and crossed by a miserable entreaty.

Ah! if they had had that look at first, I could have told him.

"Are you _sure_ ?" he repeats, and I, driven by the fates to my destruction, while God hides his face from me, and the devil pushes me on, answer hazily, "Yes, quite sure!" Then he asks me no more questions; he turns and slowly leaves the room, and I know that I have lied in vain!.