“Come round to Barbara’s Building at six o’clock and tell me how she is.”

He came on the stroke of six.

The fame of Lola spread through the borough, and now she can walk feared, honoured, unmolested by night or by day through the streets of horror and crime, which neither I nor any other man—­no matter how courageous—­dare enter at certain hours without the magical protection of a policeman.

Sunshine has come at last, both into this little backwater of the world by the sea and into my own life, and it is time I should end this futile record.

Yesterday as we lay on the sands, watching the waves idly lap the shore, Lola brought herself nearer to me with a rhythmic movement as no other creature form of woman is capable of, and looked into my eyes.  And she whispered something to me which led to an infinite murmuring of foolish things.  I put my arms round her and kissed her on the lips and on her cheek—­whether the beautiful or the maimed I knew not—­and she sank into a long, long silence.  At last she said: 

“What are you thinking of?”

I said, “I’m thinking that not a single human being on the face of the earth has a sense of humour.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Simply this,” said I, “that what has occurred billions of billions of millions of times on the earth we are now regarding as the only thing that ever happened.”

“Well,” said Lola, “so it is—­for us—­the only thing that ever happened.”

And the astounding woman was right.