boat-house, and there we hired a boat, and I rowed in silence under the bridge and into the shade of a tree. The square grey stone masses of the Foreign Office loomed through the twigs, I remember, and a little space of grass separated us from the pathway and the scrutiny of passers-by. And there we talked.
“I had to write to you,” I said.
“I had to come.”
“When are you to be married?”
“Thursday week.”
“Well?” I said. “But—can we?”
She leant forward and scrutinised my face with eyes wide open. “What do you mean?” she said at last in a whisper.
“Can we stand it? After all?”
I looked at her white face. “Can you?” I said.
She whispered. “Your career?”
Then suddenly her face was contorted,—she wept silently, exactly as a child tormented beyond endurance might suddenly weep....
“Oh!