“It’s a wonderful thing to be happy, Frank. I’ve never been happy before in my life. I’m a pusillanimous sort of bloke, and there’s the truth. I wasn’t happy at home, or at school, or at college, or in any of the hospitals where I worked; and I never made any friends. You must know I’ve been queer when I say that women have always looked at me as if I was outside of their range. They’ve never made up to me in the way they do to most fellows with a bit of money and not deformed. Regina—there! I’ve said her name—she was the very first who ever took the trouble to be more than just decently civil.” I managed to stammer the words, “What did she do?” “Oh, nothing very much—not at first. She seemed to think—she used to say it—that I was different from most men. That’s what she appeared to be on the lookout for. All the other chaps she knew were so much alike, and I—Well, that’s how it began. She wanted the unusual—and I turned up. After a while she thought I wasn’t unusual enough—said it in so many words—But you know that story. I’ve told you too many times already.” “And now?” “She thinks she’ll marry me.” He brought out the statement in a voice all awe and amazement. “She only thinks?” “Oh, she will. She wouldn’t say anything about it if she didn’t mean—” “And—and you’re going to—to let her?” “Let her? Why, man, you might as well ask me if I’d let God forgive my sins if He said He’d do it.” “God could forgive your sins and not be any the worse off Himself.” He sprang forward in his chair, grabbing at the bedclothes. “Frank, I swear to you it will be the same with her. She’ll never be sorry. I’ll never let her. She’ll be like God to me. I’ll make my whole life worship and service.” “If that’s what she wants.” “It’s what every woman wants, so they say. They just ask to be loved; and when you love them enough—” He uttered a little shrill laugh, in which there was a touch of the hysterical that was always somewhere about him. “God! Frank, it’s wonderful! Even you who know her can’t imagine what it means to a lonely bloke like me.” I pumped myself up to a great effort. “Suppose”—I had to moisten my lips before going on—“suppose she was to play you the same trick she played you before?” “She wouldn’t.” In spite of his evident conviction, I pressed the question. “But if she did?” He threw off in a tone that seemed careless: “In that case there’d be just one thing for me to do. I’d leave her everything I possess—I’m doing that as it is—and, well, you can guess the rest. I—I couldn’t go through all that again. The first time—well, I just pulled it off; but the second—” It was the old story. They all seemed to have the second time on the brain. I, too, was getting it on the brain. It was like a trip-hammer pounding in my head. I forced myself, however, to make some foolish, semi-jovial speech in which there was no congratulation, begging him, then, for the love of Heaven, to clear out, as I wanted to go to sleep. _CHAPTER XXV_