It would be abominable to have to go through life forever, alone with the consciousness of that sort of treachery of silence.

But how could I tell him even the comprehensibles?
What kind of sentence was I to open with?
With pluckings of an apologetic string, without prelude at all--or how?
I grew conscious that there was need for haste; he was looking behind him down the long white road for the carriage that was to pick us up.
"My dear fellow...." I began.

He must have noted a change in my tone, and looked at me with suddenly lifted eyebrows.

"You know my sister is going to marry Mr.Gurnard." "Why, no," he answered--"that is ...

I've heard...." he began to offer good wishes.
"No, no," I interrupted him hurriedly, "not that.