David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 58 Page 14

when I began to think that I might have set its earliest and brightest hopes on Agnes.

I cannot say at what stage of my grief it first became associated with the reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, I had thrown away the treasure of her love. I believe I may have heard some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or want of something never to be realized, of which I had been sensible. But the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I was left so sad and lonely in the world.

If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weakness of my desolation, have betrayed this.

It was what I remotely dreaded when I was first impelled to stay away from England. I could not have borne to lose the smallest