human being; and his confidences at last included a bowdlerized
account of his wretched marriage. But though they soon became
friends, and though he went on seeing a great deal of her, all
through that autumn and winter, Sherston feared to put his fate
to the touch, and he was jealous--God alone knew how hideously,
intolerably jealous--of the khaki-clad soldiers who came and went
in her father's house in town.

and then, one day, during the second summer of their acquaintance,
a word let drop by Mr. Pomeroy, who had become fond of the odd,
restless fellow, opened a pit before Sherston's feet. It was a
word implying that now, at last, Helen's father and mother hoped
she would "make up her mind." A very distinguished soldier, whom
she had refused as a girl of twenty, had come back unchanged,
after six years, from India, and Helen, or so her parents hoped
and thought, was seriously thinking of him.

Sherston had kept away. He had even left two of her letters--the
rather formal letters which had come to mean so very much in his
life--unanswered. A fortnight had gone by, and then there had
reached him a prim little note from Mrs. Pomeroy, asking him why
he had not been to see them lately. There was a postscript: "If
you do not come soon, you will not see my daughter. She has not
been well, and we are thinking of sending her up to Scotland, to
friends who are in Skye, for a good long holiday."

He had gone to Cadogan Square (it was August 13th) as quickly as a
taxi could take him, and by a blessed stroke of luck he had found
Miss Pomeroy alone. In a flash all had come right between them.
That had only been nine weeks ago, and now they were to be married