This is the saddest story I have ever heard. For nine years, in Nauheim, we had a very intimate and intimate acquaintance with the Ashburnhams, or rather, a superficial and casual acquaintance, but as comfortable as a comfortable glove to a hand. My wife and I knew Captain Ashburnham and his wife as well as we could know anybody else, but in a sense we knew nothing about them. I suppose such things are hardly perceptible except in the English. Up to this moment, whenever I have struggled with my mind to gather together what I know of this unhappy story, I have found that I am in the presence of people I do not know. I have not set foot in England for six months, and of course I have not listened to any English heart; all I have known was a thin shell.
