"
"I will not keep you long."
Bending forward, his hands on his knees, his eyes upon the ground, he
thought a moment. When he began to speak, it was in a quiet and
perfectly colorless tone.
"I knew Juliet Wentworth first--when she was seventeen. I was on the
Midland Circuit, and went down to the Milchester Assizes. Her father was
High Sheriff, and asked me, with other barristers of the Circuit, not
only to his official dinner in the county town, but to luncheon at his
house, a mile or two away. There I saw Miss Wentworth. She made a deep
impression on me. After the Assizes were over, I stayed at her father's
house and in the neighborhood. Within a month I proposed to her. She
refused me. I merely mention these circumstances for the sake of
reporting my first impressions of her character. She was very young, and
of an extraordinarily nervous and sensitive organization. She used to
remind me of Horace's image of the young fawn trembling and starting in
the mountain paths at the rustling of a leaf or the movement of a
lizard. I felt then that her life might very well be a tragedy, and I
passionately desired to be able to protect and help her.
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