 gave him
the requisite impulse.
    »What's the bad news you've got to tell me, Dick?« she asked shyly.
    »Bad news? Why, yes, I suppose it is bad, and it's no use pretending
anything else. I've brought you down here just to tell it you. Somebody must
know first, and it had better be somebody who'll listen patiently, and perhaps
help me to get over it. I don't know quite how you'll take it, Alice. For
anything I can tell you may get up and be off, and have nothing more to do with
me.«
    »Why, what ever can it be, Dick? Don't talk nonsense. You're not afraid of
me, I should think.«
    »Yes, I am a bit afraid of you, old girl. It isn't a nice thing to tell you,
and there's the long and short of it. I'm hanged if I know how to begin.«
    He laughed in an irresolute way. Trying to light a new cigarette from the
remnants of the one he had smoked, his hands shook. Then he had recourse again
to cognac.
    Alice was drumming with her foot on the floor. She sat forward, her arms
crossed upon her lap. Her eyes were still on the fire.
    »Is it anything about Emma, Dick?« she asked, after a disconcerting silence.
    »Yes, it is.«
    »Hadn't you better tell me at once? It isn't at all nice to feel like this.«
    »Well, I'll tell you. I can't many Emma; I'm going to marry someone else.«
    Alice was prepared, but the plain words caused her a moment's consternation.
    »Oh, what ever will they all say, Dick?« she exclaimed, in a low voice.
    »That's bad enough, to be sure, but I think more about Emma herself. I feel
ashamed of myself, and that's the plain truth. Of course I shall always give her
and her sisters all the money they want to live upon, but that isn't altogether
a way out. If only I could have hinted something to her before now. I've let it
go on so long. I'm going to be married in a fortnight.«
    He could not look Alice in the face, nor she him. His shame made him angry;
he flung
