behavior throughout the time which he was able to account for.
And yet his conscience acquitted him of any actual default; if he had ever really had any passages at all approaching the sentimental with either Miss Tyrrell or Miss Davenport, his mind could hardly be so utterly blank on the subject as it certainly was. No; at the worst, his failings were only potential peccadilloes, the kind of weaknesses he might have given way to if he had not wisely postponed the hours in which the occasions were afforded.
He had had a warning, a practical moral lesson which had merely arrived, as such things often do, rather after date.
But, so far as it was possible to profit by it, he would: at least, he would abstain from making any further inroads upon the balance of extra time which still remained to his credit at the bank; he would draw no further cheques; he would return to that P. and O. steamer no more. For an engaged man whose wedding-day was approaching by leaps and bounds, it was, however innocent, too disturbing and exciting a form of distraction to be quite safely indulged in.
