"I think so. I judge by her manner: it is only consistent with perfect innocence. In truth, Lennard, I begin to see that I was foolish to have doubted her at all, the circumstances surrounding it are so intensely improbable."
And yet, even while I spoke, something of the suspicion crept into my mind again. So prone to inconsistency is the human heart.
CHAPTER VII.
ANNABEL.
MOST men have their romance in life sooner or later. Mine had come in due course, and she who made it for me was Annabel Brightman.
After my first meeting with her, when she was a child of fourteen, and I not much more than a lad of twenty, I had continued to see her from time to time, for Mr. Brightman's first invitation to me was only the prelude to others. I watched her grow up into a good, unaffected woman, lovable and charming as she was when a child. Childhood had passed away now, and thought and gentleness had taken its place; and to my eyes and my heart no other girl in the world could compare with Annabel Brightman.