However, it may do good for
Arthur to know it--it is right that every one here should. It will
divert you from thinking about a subject, which, out of a fatal
misconception, has caused a great deal of pain to all of you. May I
please tell you, Mrs. Pendennis?"
"Pray speak," was all Helen said; and indeed she was not much heeding;
her mind was full of another idea with which Pen's words had supplied
her, and she was in a terror of hope that what he had hinted might be
as she wished.
George filled himself a bumper of wine and emptied it, and began to
speak. "You all of you know how you see me," he said, "A man without a
desire to make an advance in the world; careless about reputation; and
living in a garret and from hand to mouth, though I have friends and a
name, and I dare say capabilities of my own, that would serve me if I
had a mind. But mind I have none. I shall die in that garret most
likely, and alone. I nailed myself to that doom in early life. Shall I
tell you what it was that interested me about Arthur years ago, and
made me inclined toward him when first I saw him? The men from our
college at Oxbridge brought up accounts of that early affair with the
Chatteris actress, about whom Pen has often talked to me since; and
who, but for the major's generalship, might have been your
daughter-in-law, ma'am.
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