.

THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE.
The boy looked so blithe and buoyant, so gallant and still so frank, that even now I could not think as meanly of him as poor Eva did.

A rogue he must be, but surely not the petty rogue that she had made him out.

Yet it was dirty work that he had done by me; and there I had to lie and take his kind, false, felon's hand in mine.
"My poor dear fellow," he cried, "I'm most sorry to find you like this.
But I was afraid of it last night.

It's all this infernally strong air!" How I longed to tell him what it was, and to see his face! The thought of Eva alone restrained me, and I retorted as before, in a tone I strove to make as friendly, that it was his admirable wine and nothing else.
"But you took hardly any." "I shouldn't have touched a drop.