David Copperfield
don’t intend to mention it to mother, nor to any living soul.
I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you
should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be
so umble!’
I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I
knew myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me,
it would have been a relief and a justification; but he had put
me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half the night.
In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell
was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his
mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and
I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough
to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face
was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his
hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his ap-
pearance. I heard that he went to a dentist’s in London on
the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a
double one.
The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and re-
mained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during
the remainder of the visit. Agnes and her father had been
gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. On the day
preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his own
hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself;
and laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words,
never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had confided
it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a subject I could
discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the least
suspicion of what had passed.