And so Rose Allinson became Rose Holt, and those of us who were nearest the young couple in kin or intimacy followed them into the vestry to wish them joy and sign the register. Having kissed my darling and written my name, I slipped away. I could not endure more. The vestry had a back door and I slipped through it, pocketed my button-hole carnation, and, after lunch, went to a sale of mezzotints at Christie’s, where I endeavoured to soothe my feelings by buying two Valentine Greens which (unless I was to die next week, when one can afford anything) I couldn’t afford. And so far as I could see then, there was no particular reason why I should not die next week—nothing, I mean, important enough to call for my continued existence. * * * * * Mrs. Eustace Holt was, I think, fairly happy in her early married life. I saw her now and then, and was not conscious of anything very wrong. She seemed to have lost tone: that was all; but I put that down largely to living in London, cooped up by bricks and mortar instead of her old free garden life. Also Eustace was not exciting. But I think she was fond of him, and I know that he was very proud of her, perhaps even to tiring her by exhibiting her too much to his friends. She was too candid to be a very easy diner-out, and too courteous not to make the effort. And then came the tragedy. Rose’s first child died at the end of only three weeks of life. You remember what she said about wanting boys. Well, this was a boy, and Rose was in the seventh heaven of delight. She squandered herself on it. No other young mother, the nurse told me on that sad day when we buried the poor little creature, had, in her experience, been so happy. “And that, as you know,” she added to me, “is a big thing to say.” I found my poor child inconsolable; in a kind of stupor of bewilderment and revolt against the blind stupidities of fate. To let this perfect little being fade into nothingness and allow the ugly, blundering world to go on! She was long in recovering and longer still before she was herself again. I did all I could to get Eustace to let her come to me to convalesce, but he would not let her out of his sight, and took her to this and that health resort, and even for one winter to the Riviera. * * * * * It was nearly two years before I saw her again, and then I went up to dine and spend the night by way of celebrating my fiftieth birthday. That was in 1900. * * * * *