During the early afternoon on the 25th, she rang him up on the telephone. Chance willed that he should receive the call at first hand. She must see him before he left Wellingsford. She had something of the utmost importance to tell him. A matter of life and death. With one awful thought in his mind, he placed his time at her disposal. For what romantic, desperate or tragic reason she appointed the night meeting at the end of the chestnut avenue where the towing-path turns into regions of desolate quietude, he could not tell. He agreed without argument, dreading the possible lack of privacy in their talk over the wires. On that afternoon she came to me, as I have told you, with her strawberries and her declaration of the rottenness of life. They met and walked along the towing-path. It was bright moonlight, but she could not have chosen a lonelier spot, more free from curious eyes or ears. And then took place a scene which it is beyond my power to describe. I can only picture it to myself from Boyce's broken, self-accusing talk. He was going away. She would never see him again until he returned to marry another woman. She was making her last frantic bid for happiness. She wept and sobbed and cajoled and upbraided--You know what women at the end of their tether can do. He strove to pacify her by the old arguments which hitherto she had accepted. Suddenly she cried: "If you don't marry me I am disgraced for ever." And this brought them to a dead halt. When he came to this point I remembered the diabolical accuracy of Gedge's story. Boyce said: "There is one usual reason why a man should marry a woman to save her from disgrace. Is that the reason?" She said "Yes." The light went out of the man's life. "In that case," said he, "there can be no question about it. I will marry you. But why didn't you tell me before?" She said she did not know. She made the faltering excuses of the driven girl. They walked on together and sat on the great bar of the lock gates. "Till then," said he, "I had never known what it was to have death in my heart. But I swear to God, Meredyth, I played my part like a man. I had done a dastardly thing. There was nothing left for me but to make reparation. In a few moments I tore my life asunder. The girl I had wronged was to be the mother of my child. I accepted the situation. I was as kind to her as I could be. She laid her head on my shoulder and cried, and I put my arm around her. I felt my heart going out to her in remorse and pity and tenderness. A man must be a devil who could feel otherwise.... Our lives were bound up together.... I kissed her and she clung to me. Then we talked for a while--ways and means.... It was time to go back. We rose. And then--Meredyth--this is what she said: "'You swear to marry me?' "'I swear it,' said I. "'In spite of anything?' "I gave my promise. She put her arms round my neck. "'What I've told you is not wholly true. But the moral disgrace is there all the time.'