MARY STUART And now I come to an event in this history which I find difficult to place before you in its true light.

For Dorothy's sake I wish I might omit it altogether.

But in true justice to her and for the purpose of making you see clearly the enormity of her fault and the palliating excuses therefor, if any there were, I shall pause briefly to show the condition of affairs at the time of which I am about to write--a time when Dorothy's madness brought us to the most terrible straits and plunged us into deepest tribulations.
Although I have been unable to show you as much of John as I have wished you to see, you nevertheless must know that he, whose nature was not like the shallow brook but was rather of the quality of a deep, slow-moving river, had caught from Dorothy an infection of love from which he would never recover.

His soul was steeped in the delicious essence of the girl.
I would also call your attention to the conditions under which his passion for Dorothy had arisen.

It is true he received the shaft when first he saw her at the Royal Arms in Derby-town, but the shaft had come from Dorothy's eyes.