bachelor vices, the pulling up short, and all those actions that speak
more softly than words?

What could she know of the strength and depth of the love that could
keep such a man as the Colonel from the bar, the bridge-table, the
race-course and the Paphian dame? Of the love that made him walk
warily lest he offend one for whom his quarter of a century, and more,
of barrack and bachelor-bungalow life, made him feel so utterly unfit
and unworthy? What could she know of all that he had given up and
delighted to give up--now that he truly loved a true woman? The
hard-living, hard-hearted, hard-spoken man had become a gentle
frequenter of his wife's tea-parties, her companion at church, her
constant attendant--never leaving the bungalow, save for duty, without
her.

To those who knew him it was a World's Marvel; to her, who knew him
not, it was nothing at all--normal, natural. And being a man who spoke
only when he must, who dreaded the expression of any emotion, and who
foolishly thought that actions speak louder than words, he had omitted
to tell her daily--or even weekly or monthly--that he loved her; and
she had died pitying herself and reproaching him.

Fate's old, old game of Cross Purposes. Major John Decies, reserved,
high-minded gentleman, loving Lenore de Warrenne (and longing to tell
her so daily), with the one lifelong love of a steadfast nature;
Yvette Stukeley, reserved, high-minded gentlewoman, loving Colonel de
Warrenne, and longing to escape from Bimariabad before his wedding to
her sister, and doing so at the earliest possible date thereafter:
each woman losing the man who would have been her ideal husband, each
man losing the woman who would have been his ideal wife.