But it's just like my luck. Do you know that this is
the third time I've been engaged to be married?--no, by Jove, the
fourth! And every time the girl has got out of it at the last
moment. What an unlucky beast I am! A girl who was positively my
ideal! I haven't even a photograph of her to show you; but you'd
be astonished at her face. Why, in the devil's name, did I let
her go to Birmingham?'
The visitors had risen. They felt uncomfortable, for it seemed as
if Whelpdale might find vent for his distress in tears.
'We had better leave you,' suggested Biffen. 'It's very hard--it
is indeed.'
'Look here! Read the letter for yourselves! Do!'
They declined, and begged him not to insist.
'But I want you to see what kind of girl she is. It isn't a case
of farcical deceiving--not a bit of it! She implores me to
forgive her, and blames herself no end. Just my luck! The third--
no, the fourth time, by Jove! Never was such an unlucky fellow
with women. It's because I'm so damnably poor; that's it, of
course!'
Reardon and his companion succeeded at length in getting away,
though not till they had heard the virtues and beauty of the
vanished girl described again and again in much detail.
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