He stood still for a moment on the pavement in utter distraction.  What did it mean?  Had she failed him again?  Or was it simply that she had changed the city of refuge from Paris to Homburg?  He was about to name the new station to the cabman, but then, “letter follows.”  Surely that meant that he was to wait for it.  Perplexed and miserable, he stood with the telegram crumpled up in his fist.  What a ridiculous situation!  He had wrought himself up to the point of breaking with the world and his past, and now—­it only remained to satisfy the cabman!

He tossed feverishly all night, seeking to soothe himself, but really exciting himself the more by a hundred plausible explanations.  He was now strung up to such a pitch of uncertainty that he was astonished for the third time when the “letter” did duly “follow.”

“Dearest,” it ran, “as I explained in my telegram, my husband became suddenly ill”—­("if she had only put that in the telegram,” he groaned)—­“and was ordered to Homburg.  Of course it was impossible to leave him in this crisis, both for practical and sentimental reasons.  You yourself, darling, would not like me to have aggravated his illness by my flight just at this moment, and thus possibly have his death on my conscience.” ("Darling, you are always right,” he said, kissing the letter.) “Let us possess our souls in patience a little longer.  I need not tell you how vexatious it will be to find myself nursing him in Homburg—­out of the season even—­instead of the prospect to which I had looked forward with my whole heart and soul.  But what can one do?  How true is the French proverb, ’Nothing happens but the unexpected’!  Write to me immediately Poste Restante, that I may at least console myself with your dear words.”

The unexpected did indeed happen.  Despite draughts of Elizabethbrunnen and promenades on the Kurhaus terrace, the stalwart woman beater succumbed to his malady.  The curt telegram from Winifred gave no indication of her emotions.  He sent a reply-telegram of sympathy with her trouble.  Although he could not pretend to grieve at this sudden providential solution of their life-problem, still he did sincerely sympathise with the distress inevitable in connection with a death, especially on foreign soil.

He was not able to see her till her husband’s body had been brought across the North Sea and committed to the green repose of the old Hampstead churchyard.  He found her pathetically altered—­her face wan and spiritualised, and all in subtle harmony with the exquisite black gown.  In the first interview, he did not dare speak of their love at all.  They discussed the immortality of the soul, and she quoted George Herbert.  But with the weeks the question of their future began to force its way back to his lips.

“We could not decently marry before six months,” she said, when definitely confronted with the problem.

“Six months!” he gasped.