“But,” I remonstrated, “I’m bound to see her sooner or later.”

The nurse lost patience.  “Ach!  Can’t you get it into your head that it is essential it should be later, when she is strong enough to stand the strain and has realised the worst and made her little preparations?”

I accepted the rebuke meekly.  The situation, when explained, was comprehensible to the meanest masculine intelligence.

“I will go,” said I.

When I announced this determination to Lola she breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“I shall be so much happier,” she said.

Then she raised both her arms and drew my head down until our lips met.  “Dear,” she whispered, still holding me, “if I hadn’t run away from you before I should run away now; but it would be silly to do it twice.  So I’ll come to London as soon as the doctor will let me.  But if you find you don’t and can’t possibly love me I shan’t feel hurt with you.  I’ve had some months, I know, of your love, and that will last me all my life; and I know that whatever happens you’ll be my very dear and devoted friend.”

“I shall be your lover always!” I swore.

She shook her head and released me.  A great pity welled up in my heart, for I know now why she had forbidden me to speak of marriage, and in some dim way I got to the depth of her woman’s nature.  I realised, as far as a man can, how the sudden blasting of a woman’s beauty must revolutionise not only her own attitude towards the world, but her conception of the world’s attitude towards her.  Only a few weeks before she had gone about proudly conscious of her superb magnificence.  It was the triumphant weapon in her woman’s armoury, to use when she so chose.  It had illuminated a man’s journey (I knew and felt it now) through the Valley of the Shadow.  It had held his senses captive.  It had brought him to her feet.  It was a charm that she could always offer to his eyes.  It was her glory and her pride to enhance it for his delectation.  Her beauty was herself.  That gone, she had nothing but a worthless soul to offer, and what woman would dream of offering a man her soul if she had no casket in which to enshrine it?  If I had presented this other aspect of the case to Lola, she would have cried out, with perfect sincerity: 

“My soul!  You get things like mine anywhere for twopence a dozen.”

It was the blasting of her beauty that was the infinite matter.  All that I loved would be gone.  She would have nothing left to give.  The splendour of the day had ceased, and now was coming the long, long, dreary night, to meet which with dignity she was nerving her brave heart.

The tears were not far from my eyes when I said again softly: 

“Your lover always, dear.”

“Make no promises,” she said, “except one.”

“And that is?”

“That you will write me often until I come home.”

“Every day.”