wept. Thank God we are not going to live here. She stayed at the Prep. for ten days and I spent every spare second with her. Every morning I used to go down to fetch her and she used to come up the shore to meet me, looking just lovely. She would sit and sew in my rooms all day so that I could get to her at once after school and I abandoned all games so that I could be with her. After ten days she could stay no longer at the Prep. and the Head Master had not asked her for another month, so I had to try all sorts of people to see if they would entertain her. No one would! So she had to go home. I couldn't do without her: I thought I should go mad. One morning the doctor came round and told me that I ought to give myself a rest, that my nerves were giving way, that he would fix up leave for me--that I was simply to go away at once. So without saying good-bye to any of my four-years' friends I packed a suit-case and left. It seems impossible to believe, now that I am back in Bath with Elspeth, that I can ever have suffered as I did: it is all like the dim recollection of some horrible nightmare. I miss my boys, I miss my form, I hate to think of another man usurping my rooms, my place in chapel, taking my work--but the break is final. This morning I received all my books, my pictures, my clothes, everything that I had collected in my four years and Radchester and I part company for ever. XIII _July 9, 1913_ As soon as we got back to Bath I was sent to a doctor, who told me that I was suffering from a very severe nervous breakdown, and that I must do literally nothing till September but laze. So I have parted from Radchester for ever. Once I was married he said I should probably become normal again. Elspeth and I spent our days shopping and making arrangements for the wedding. We went down to Marlton to find a suitable house to live in and found one about a mile from the school, right on the outskirts of the town, a semi-detached "villa," rather like the house in Stratford-on-Avon in which Shakespeare was born: it has a tiny stretch of garden and a superb view from the dining-room and bedroom windows of the park and the wooded hills of the south away towards the sea. £35 a year is the rent. We measured every nook of it for carpets and stairs and hall furniture, and made an inventory of everything that we should want. We spend many happy hours searching through catalogues for all that we shall require in the house. I have insured my life for £1000, so that Elspeth will not be left quite penniless if I die suddenly. We play tennis a good deal and I read a fair amount, but I haven't the heart to write very much. I don't quite know why. _July 30, 1913_