"You do not mean to say that you are going to _read_?" I say, in a tone of sharp vexation. He lays it down again. "If you had rather talk, I will not." "I am afraid," say I, with a sour laugh, "that you have not kept much conversation _for home use_! I suppose you exhausted it all, this morning, at Laurel Cottage!" He passes his hand slowly across his forehead. "Perhaps!--I do not think I am in a very talking vein." "By-the-by," say I, my heart beating thick, and with a hurry and tremor in my voice, as I approach the desired yet dreaded theme, "you have never told me what it was, besides Mr. Huntley's debts, that you talked of this morning!--you owned that you did not talk of business _quite_ all the time!" "Did I?" He has forgotten his book now; across the flame of the candles, he is looking full and steadily at me. "When I asked you, you said it was not about old times?--of course--" (laughing acridly)--"I can imagine your becoming illimitably diffuse about _them_, but you told me, that, 'No,' you did not mention them." "I told truth." "You also said," continue I, with my voice still trembling, and my pulses throbbing, "that it was not _Algy_ that you were discussing!--if _I_ had been in your place, I could, perhaps, have found a good deal to say about _him_; but you told me that you never mentioned him." "We did not." "Then what _did_ you talk about?" I ask, in strong excitement; "it must have been a very odd theme that you find such difficulty in repeating." Still he is looking, with searching gravity, full in my face. "Do you _really_ wish to know?" I cannot meet his eyes: something in me makes me quail before them. I turn mine away, but answer, stoutly: "Yes, I _do_ wish. Why should I have asked, if I did not?" Still he says nothing: still I feel, though I am not looking at him, that his eyes are upon me. "Was it--" say I, unable any longer to bear that dumb gaze, and preferring to take the bull by the horns, and rush on my fate--"was it any thing about _me_? has she been telling you any tales of--of--_me_?" No answer! No sound but the clock, and Vick's heavy breathing, as she peacefully snores on the footstool. I _cannot_ bear the suspense. Again I lift my eyes, and look at him. Yes, I am right! the intense anxiety--the overpowering emotion on his face tell me that I have touched the right string. "Are there--are there--are you aware that there are any tales that she _could_ tell of you?" Again I laugh harshly. "Ha! ha! if we came to mutual anecdotes, I am not quite sure that I might not have the best of it!"