“Of which my Annie,” said the Doctor, “never, but for me, could have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do not feel, tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life⁠—my life⁠—upon the truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation!”

I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did.

“But I am not prepared,” he went on, “to deny⁠—perhaps I may have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit⁠—that I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than mine.”