Fiction > Book editions > New York, 1893 - David Balfour

282 DAVID BALFOUR
'^I have no guess how I have offended,'' said I ; "it
should scarce be beyond pardon, then. 0, try if you
can pardon me."
" I have no pardon to give/' said she ; and the words
seemed to come out of her throat like marbles. " I will
be very much obliged for all your friendships." And
she made me an eight part of a curtsey.
But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more,
and I was going to say it too.
"There is one thing,'' said I. " If I have shocked
your particularity by the showing of that letter, it can-
not touch Miss Grant. She wrote not to you, but to a
poor, common, ordinary lad, who might have had more
sense tlian sliow it. If you are to blame me "
" I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at
all events ! " said Catriona. "It is her I will never look
the road of, not if she lay dying." She turned away
from me, and suddenly back. "Will you swear you
will have no more to deal with her ? " she cried.
" Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then," said I ;
"nor yet so ungrateful.*'
And now it was I that turned away.