"Look here! say I'm half distracted, and all that.
And--wait a bit--tell her to stop where she is till I write to her." Arnold hesitated.

Absolutely ignorant of that low and limited form of knowledge which is called "knowledge of the world," his inbred delicacy of mind revealed to him the serious difficulty of the position which his friend was asking him to occupy as plainly as if he was looking at it through the warily-gathered experience of society of a man of twice his age.
"Can't you write to her now, Geoffrey ?" he asked.
"What's the good of that ?" "Consider for a minute, and you will see.

You have trusted me with a very awkward secret.

I may be wrong--I never was mixed up in such a matter before--but to present myself to this lady as your messenger seems exposing her to a dreadful humiliation.

Am I to go and tell her to her face: 'I know what you are hiding from the knowledge of all the world;' and is she to be expected to endure it ?" "Bosh!" said Geoffrey.