There was just a possibility that she would not fulfil her letter, that she would come back to me; but if I by my actions to-night brought any publicity on what she had done, I should make an injury where none existed.

I thought for some time over this, and it seemed impossible for me to do anything but wait for her return—­wait till I knew.

The thought of her name, her reputation, and how I might possibly injure them now held me there motionless.

It seemed incredible that she could be so long away and yet her absence mean nothing.  But the other supposition, the thought of her passing from me, seemed more incredible still.

I know how great her love for me was, and love like ours is not easily swept aside and its claims broken down.  Still, in a paroxysm of jealous agony and resentment against me, all might be obscured, and if Lawton were there persuading....

And this, something of this pain, I now felt, she had suffered, as the soaked handkerchief told me.

How I loathed the thought of Veronica!  Love, even when it has expired, leaves some tenderness of feeling to us; passion once dead leaves nothing but loathing.

I got up and wrote a few lines of dismissal.  It was something to do, something to distract my devouring thoughts.  I enclosed a cheque for all, and more than the sum due to her.  Then I flung the letter on the table, and pushed the thought of her out of my mind.

I paced up and down the room, looking constantly at the clock.  What were these fleeting moments taking from me?  My brain seemed on fire and full of light.  Picture after picture rose before me, vivid, brilliant—­all pictures of Viola and hours passed with her.  What a wonderful personality she had, and I alone had possessed it.  How utterly and entirely she had given herself to me, me alone of all the many who coveted her.  I had been the first, the only one for her, till my own hand had foolishly cut the ties that bound us together.  If I lost her, suppose I gained everything else in the world, would it content me?  Could I lose her?  Could I let her go?  But I had.  I glanced at the clock.  It was now one.  She had not returned.  By this time she had passed from me to another.  The pain, the acute pain of it, of this thought seemed to divide my brain like a two-edged sword.  What had I done?

Why had I not realised that I should feel like this?  To have and then to lose while one still desires, this is the most horrible pain in the world.  The animals feel it to the point of madness, and they are wise, they do not court it.  They will tear their rival, even the female herself, in pieces rather than yield her up.  But I!  What had I done?  A mate had nestled to my breast, and I had not been wise enough to hold it there.  And now I suffered; how I suffered!  My brain seemed to writhe in those moments of agony like a body on the rack or in the flames.  Each thought was a torture:  sweet recollections came to me like the breath of flowers, only to turn into a fresh agony of despair.