Shrewsbury by Stanley J. Weyman

I know now that there never was a man in whom the natural propensity to side with the weaker party was by custom and exercise more highly developed than in my late lord, in whose presence I then stood; who, indeed, carried that virtue to such an extent that if any fault could be found with his public carriage -- which I am very far from admitting, but only that such a colour might be given to some parts of it by his enemies -- the flaw was attributable to this excess of generosity. Yet he has since told me that on this occasion of our first meeting, it was neither my youth nor my misery -- in the main at any rate -- that induced him to take so extraordinary a step as that of seeing me alone; but a strange and puzzling reminiscence, which my features aroused in him, and whereto his first words, when we were left together, bore witness. "Where, my lad," said he, staring at me, "have I seen you before?"

As well as I could, for the dread of him in which I stood, I essayed to clear my brain and think; and in me also, as I looked at him, the attempt awoke a recollection, as if I had somewhere met him. But I could conceive one place only where it was possible I might have seen a man of his rank; and so stammered that perhaps at the Rose Inn, at Ware, in the gaming-room I might have met him.