last you can't have a heart in your bosom.'

'Indeed and I have then, and I don't mean to give it him if it's ever
so. He's been and killed Sir Felix.' Mrs Hurtle in a whisper to Mrs
Pipkin expressed a wicked wish that it might be so. After that the
three women all went to bed.

CHAPTER LXXII - 'ASK HIMSELF'

Roger Carbury when he received the letter from Hetta's mother desiring
him to tell her all that he knew of Paul Montague's connection with
Mrs Hurtle found himself quite unable to write a reply. He endeavoured
to ask himself what he would do in such a case if he himself were not
personally concerned. What advice in this emergency would he give to
the mother and what to the daughter, were he himself uninterested? He
was sure that, as Hetta's cousin and asking as though he were Hetta's
brother, he would tell her that Paul Montague's entanglement with that
American woman should have forbidden him at any rate for the present
to offer his hand to any other lady. He thought that he knew enough of
all the circumstances to be sure that such would be his decision. He
had seen Mrs Hurtle with Montague at Lowestoft, and had known that
they were staying together as friends at the same hotel. He knew that
she had come to England with the express purpose of enforcing the
fulfilment of an engagement which Montague had often acknowledged. He
knew that Montague made frequent visits to her in London. He had,
indeed, been told by Montague himself that, let the cost be what it
might, the engagement should be and in fact had been broken off. He
thoroughly believed the man's word, but put no trust whatever in his
firmness. And, hitherto, he had no reason whatever for supposing that
Mrs Hurtle had consented to be abandoned. What father, what elder
brother would allow a daughter or a sister to become engaged to a man
embarrassed by such difficulties? He certainly had counselled Montague
to rid himself of the trammels by which he had surrounded himself;--
but not on that account could he think that the man in his present
condition was fit to engage himself to another woman.

All this was clear to Roger Carbury. But then it had been equally
clear to him that he could not, as a man of honour, assist his own
cause by telling a tale,--which tale had become known to him as the
friend of the man against whom it would have to be told. He had
resolved upon that as he left Montague and Mrs Hurtle together upon
the sands at Lowestoft. Bu