Or that it cost one pound six — which was more than we can afford.’

‘You enjoyed it very much,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And you said I was a Mouse.’

‘And I’ll say so again, my love,’ I returned, ‘a thousand times!’

But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don’t know what to hurt her.

I was obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.