Sentence:  That spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely out of verbal <WSD>obliquities</WSD>; to go further would be to lie, and that I would not do; so I simply sat still and suffered, -- sat mutely and resignedly there, and sizzled, -- for I was being slowly fried to death in my own blushes. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The quality of being obscure, oftentimes willfully, sometimes as an exercise in euphemism. (from 17th c.)