And so, good-bye to self.

Arthur's life and Carmel's future peace were trembling in the balance.

Surely these were worth the full attention of the man who loved the woman, who pitied the man.
At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and but slightly raised tones with which Mr.Moffat invariably began his address: "May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend of the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as appears from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt to explain the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my young client by any theory save the obvious one--the natural desire of a brother to hide his only remaining sister's connection with a tragedy of whose details he was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a theory derogatory to her position as a young and well-bred woman.
"I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client's many hesitations and suppressions--which, under other circumstances, would militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and impartial jury.

Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of honour in his soul, can understand why this man--whatever his record, and however impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity and the wilfulness of his youth--should recoil from revelations which would attack the honour, if not the life, of a young and beautiful sister, sole remnant of a family eminent in station, and in all those moral and civic attributes which make for the honour of a town and lend distinction to its history.
"Fear for a loved one, even in one whom you will probably hear described as a dissipated man, of selfish tendencies and hitherto unbrotherly qualities, is a great miracle-worker.

No sacrifice seems impossible which serves as a guard for one so situated and so threatened.
"Let us review his history.