that the reader will dispense with them.

The natural beginning of the story is that I fell in love with the lady
who has now for eight-and-thirty blessed and happy years been my wife.
It may be that I may not again find opportunity to say one thing that
should be said. That lady is a pearl among women; and I am prouder of
having fallen in love with her at first sight, as I did, than I
should be if I had taken a city or won a pitched battle. I have sought
opportunities of doing these things far and near, but they have been
denied to me. I trust that I have always been on the right side. I know
that, except in one case, I have always been on the weaker side; but
until my marriage I was what is generally called a soldier of fortune.
I am known to this day as Captain Fyffe, though I never held her most
sacred Majesty's commission. That I should be delighted to fight in
my country's cause goes, I hope, without saying; but I never had the
opportunity, and my sword, until the date of my marriage, was always at
the service of oppressed nationalities. This, however, is not my story,
and I must do my best to hold to that. Should I take to blotting and
erasing, there is no knowing when my task would be over. I will be as
little garrulous as I can.

It was in the height of the London season of 1847, and I had just got
back from the Argentine Republic. I had been fighting for General Rosas,
but the man's greed and his reckless ambition had gradually drawn me
away from him, and at last, after an open quarrel, I broke my sword
across my knee before him, threw the fragments at his feet, and left the
camp. I did it at the risk of my life; and if Rosas had cared to lift a
hand, his men would have shot me or hanged me from the nearest tree with
all the pleasure in the world. An event which has nothing whatever to do
with this story had got into the newspapers, and for a time I was
made a lion of. I found it agreeable enough to begin with, but I was
beginning to get tired of it, when the event of which I have already
spoken happened. My poor friend, the Honorable George Brunow, had taken
me, at the Duchess's invitation, to Belcaster House, and it was there I
met my fate. There was a great crush on the stairs, and the rooms were
crowded. I never once succeeded in getting as much as a glimpse of our
hostess during the whole time of my stay at the house, but before half
an hour had gone by I was content to miss that honor. Brunow and I,
tig