Since I am forced to give you pain, was it not fairer and more respectful to you to speak at once?
We have been friends.

I am very soon going away.

I sincerely want to avoid saying or doing anything that would change our relations." Ratcliffe, however, paid no attention to these words, and gave them no answer.

He was much too old a debater to be misled by such trifles, when he needed all his faculties to pin his opponent to the wall.

He asked:-- "Is your decision a new one ?" "It is a very old one, Mr.Ratcliffe, which I had let myself lose sight of, for a time.