I have been in great trouble, have gone through a bad time.

Some weeks ago there came to stay here a girl of eighteen or nineteen, the daughter of Dr.Lowndes Derwent (whose name perhaps you know).

She is very beautiful, and I was unlucky enough--if I ought to use such a phrase--to fall in love with her.

I won't try to explain what this meant to me; you wouldn't have patience to read it; but it stopped my studies, utterly overthrew my work.

I was all but ill; I suffered horribly.