Sons of Fire, Volume II by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

"Had the landlady of the house in Great Ormond Street been anybody in the world except my old nurse, I doubt if any philanthropic purpose would have inspired me with the boldness to carry through the work I had undertaken. To appear before the average lodging-house keeper within half an hour of midnight, and with such a _protégée_ as Esperanza Campbell upon my hands, would have required the courage of a lion; and I was at that time a particularly shy and sensitive young man, brought up in the retirement of a country house and in the society of a mother whom I loved very dearly, but, as we are told to love God, with fear and trembling. My constitutional shyness, the natural outcome of narrow surroundings, had kept me from making friends at the University, and I believe it was sheer pity that had prompted Gerald Standish to take me under his wing. His kindness was rewarded by finding me a likable companion, whose character supplied some of the qualities which were wanting in his bright and buoyant disposition. We were real friends; and remained friends until the end of his too-brief life.

"So much to explain that it was only my confidence in my old nurse's indulgence which enabled me to cut the knot of the difficulty in disposing of Esperanza Campbell.