I suppose a passion of this sort comes to most men never, to a few just once and never leaves them. I haven't written a sensible word in an article since that eventful night in January, which now seems twenty or thirty years ago. Five minutes after I have left Elspeth I feel as if I had been separated from her for months and were never likely to see her again. I write the most pitiable, unmanly, mawkish letters to her: she bears with me wonderfully. I wonder if it would have been better for her if she married Conyngham. He has money and certainly would not be in danger of going off his head unless he was constantly with her. I had always been led to believe that the time of one's engagement was full of ecstatic joys. I wish I found it so. All I crave is marriage and never having to separate from Elspeth as long as I live. Every day this term, instead of playing cricket, I wander for miles alone, looking at all the cottages and bungalows along the shore to find a cheap enough place for us to live in. Even Tony, though he does his best, cannot soothe me in my present paroxysms. It really is sheer cruelty to think of transplanting Elspeth from a place like Bath, away from society and shops and friends and games and amusements to a dead-alive hole like this, where she won't meet more than two girls of her own station in life in the year. I just spend my time in praying for the days to pass more quickly. I had no idea that twenty-four hours could possibly take so long in the passing. Nothing contents me. I really try to plunge into my work but I have lost all interest for the moment, even in English. The only thing that consoles me is the fact that we have fixed the sixth of August for the wedding. I am like some Lower School fag: every day I cross off the date from five or six calendars, which I keep to show that so many days have gone, so many have still to go. I have interviewed the Head Master about my staying and he wants me even as a married man. He has gone so far as to ask Elspeth to come up this term and stay with him.