“Why? Because I could not give you back that card without some token of my passion--with only commonplace entries which Jones, Brown, and Robinson might write there. I want you to feel that you belong to me, somehow, in some way, as the spirits of the dead and the souls of the living belong to each other sometimes, by links which none can see. When I am at the other end of the earth I want to feel that there is something, if it were only a word, like a masonic sign, between us; if it were only a promise that in such or such a phase of the waning moon we would each look up and breathe the other’s name.” “You are going away?” “What else can I do? Can I stay? You tell me I made you miserable by what I said this afternoon. That means we must meet no more. I can’t be sorry for my offence. I cannot answer for myself. My love has passed the point of sanity and self-control. I have no option. I must offend you, or I must leave you.” “You need not leave Trelasco,” she said gently. “I am going away to-morrow.” “Going away! Where?” “To London first, and then to India.” “To Burmah? Impossible!” “If not to the front, to the nearest convenient station. I am going to my husband; as nearly as I can reach him; and as quickly as I can make the journey.” “You are dreaming.” “No, I have quite made up my mind. I hated to be left behind last year; and now that his return is deferred my only chance of happiness is to go to him. Some one called me a grass widow the other day. What a detestable name!” “Give me this one waltz?” he asked, without any comment upon her intended journey. “Impossible. I told them all I shouldn’t dance any more.” “Oh, your partners are all in the supper-room, I dare say. The dancing men go in last. Hark! it’s the Myosotis. Just one turn--only one.” He had risen from his low seat, and she rose involuntarily at the sound of the opening bars. He put his arm round her gently, and drew her into the ball-room, waltzing slowly as they went, and then, with the sudden impetus of an enthusiastic dancer, he was whirling her round the room, and she know nothing, cared for nothing, in the confusion of light and melody. “Think of me sometimes when you are far away!” he whispered, with his lips almost touching her forehead. She did not resent that whisper. Already, within a dozen hours of his first offence, she had grown accustomed to his words of love. It seemed to her as if they had loved each other for years--had loved and had despaired long ago, in some dim half-remembered past. A passion of this kind is like a dream, in which an instant gives the impression of half a lifetime, of long memories and old habit. The room was much clearer now. “Is it very late?” asked Isola. “About four.” “So late--and I told the flyman half-past two. It is dreadful. Let us stop, please.”