“Thank you. O thank you! Don’t part from me till I have said one other word, to do you justice. The only fault you can be truly charged with, in having spoken to me as you did that night⁠—with how much delicacy and how much forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to you for⁠—is, that you laid yourself open to be slighted by a worldly shallow girl whose head was turned, and who was quite unable to rise to the worth of what you offered her. Mr. Rokesmith, that girl has often seen herself in a pitiful and poor light since, but never in so pitiful and poor a light as now, when the mean tone in which she answered you⁠—sordid and vain girl that she was⁠—has been echoed in her ears by Mr. Boffin.”

He kissed her hand again.