On the last of these occasions I had met her at the garden-gate,
and had particularly remarked that she seemed agitated; and now, at
recalling these incidents, Agnes reminded me that I had noticed that
circumstance to herself, and that she had answered me faithfully as to
the main fact. It was true she had done so; for she had said that she
had just met a lunatic who had alarmed her by fixing his attention upon
herself, and speaking to her in a ruffian manner; and it was also true
that she did sincerely regard him in that light. This led me at the
time to construe the whole affair into a casual collision with some
poor maniac escaping from his keepers, and of no future moment, having
passed by without present consequences. But had she, instead of thus
reporting her own erroneous impression, reported the entire
circumstances of the case, I should have given them a very different
interpretation. Affection for me, and fear to throw me needlessly into
a quarrel with a man of apparently brutal and violent nature--these
considerations, as too often they do with the most upright wives, had
operated to check Agnes in the perfect sincerity of her communications.
She had told nothing _but_ the truth--only, and fatally it turned
out for us both, she had not told the _whole_ truth.
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