e I went two or three times to get a
newspaper; we talked a little--with absolute propriety on my part, I
assure you--and she knew that I was a friend of the Goodalls. The girl
had no parents, and she was on the point of going to London to live
with a married sister.

'It happened that by the very train which took me back to London, when
my visit was over, this girl also travelled, and alone. I saw her at
Upchurch Station, but we didn't speak, and I got into a smoking
carriage. We had to change at Oxford, and there, as I walked about the
platform, Amy put herself in my way, so that I was obliged to begin
talking with her. This behaviour rather surprised me. I wondered what
Mrs. Goodall would think of it. But perhaps it was a sign of innocent
freedom in the intercourse of men and women. At all events, Amy managed
to get me into the same carriage with herself, and on the way to London
we were alone. You foresee the end of it. At Paddington Station the
girl and I went off together, and she didn't get to her sister's till
the evening.

'Of course I take it for granted that you believe my account of the
matter. Miss Drake was by no means the spiritual young person that Mrs.
Goodall thought her, or hoped to make her; plainly, she was a reprobate
of experience. This, you will say, doesn't alter the fact that I also
behaved like a reprobate. No; from the moralist's point of view I was
to blame. But I had no moral pretentions, and it was too much to expect
that I should rebuke the young woman and preach her a sermon. You admit
that, I dare say?'

The mathematician, frowning uncomfortably, gave a nod of assent.

'Amy was not only a reprobate, but a rascal. She betrayed me to the
people at Upchurch, and, I am quite sure, meant from the first to do
so. Imagine the outcry. I had committed a monstrous crime--had led
astray an innocent maiden, had outraged hospitality--and so on. In
Amy's case there were awkward results. Of course I must marry the girl
forthwith. But of course I was determined to do no such thing. For the
reasons I have explained, I let the storm break upon me. I had been a
fool, to be sure, and couldn't help myself. No one would have believed
my plea--no one would have allowed that the truth was an excuse. I was
abused on all hands. And when, shortly after, my father made his will
and died, doubtless he cut me off with my small annuity on this very
account. My cousin Mary got a good deal of the money that would