“And it was very kind of you, my own darling,” said I. “I felt it so much that I wouldn’t on any account have even mentioned that you bought a salmon⁠—which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound six⁠—which was more than we can afford.”

“You enjoyed it very much,” sobbed Dora. “And you said I was a mouse.”

“And I’ll say so again, my love,” I returned, “a thousand times!”

But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don’t know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.

It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.