I had a curious revulsion of feeling that morning of our meeting. (Of all places for such a clandestine encounter she had chosen the bridge opposite Buckingham Palace.) Overnight I had been full of self pity, and eager for the comfort of Isabel's presence. But the ill-written scrawl in which she had replied had been full of the suggestion of her own weakness and misery. And when I saw her, my own selfish sorrows were altogether swept away by a wave of pitiful tenderness. Something had happened to her that I did not understand. She was manifestly ill. She came towards me wearily, she who had always borne herself so bravely; her shoulders seemed bent, and her eyes were tired, and her face white and drawn. All my life has been a narrow self-centred life; no brothers, no sisters or children or weak things had ever yet made any intimate appeal to me, and suddenly--I verily believe for the first time in my life!--I felt a great passion of protective ownership; I felt that here was something that I could die to shelter, something that meant more than joy or pride or splendid ambitions or splendid creation to me, a new kind of hold upon me, a new power in the world. Some sealed fountain was opened in my breast. I knew that I could love Isabel broken, Isabel beaten, Isabel ugly and in pain, more than I could love any sweet or delightful or glorious thing in life. I didn't care any more for anything in the world but Isabel, and that I should protect her. I trembled as I came near her, and could scarcely speak to her for the emotion that filled me.... “I had your letter,” I said. “I had yours.” “Where can we talk?” I remember my lame sentences. “We'll have a boat. That's best here.” I took her to the little boat-house, and there we hired a boat, and I rowed in silence under the bridge and into the shade of a tree. The square grey stone masses of the Foreign Office loomed through the twigs, I remember, and a little space of grass separated us from the pathway and the scrutiny of passers-by. And there we talked. “I had to write to you,” I said. “I had to come.” “When are you to be married?” “Thursday week.” “Well?” I said. “But--can we?” She leant forward and scrutinised my face with eyes wide open. “What do you mean?” she said at last in a whisper. “Can we stand it? After all?” I looked at her white face. “Can you?” I said. She whispered. “Your career?” Then suddenly her face was contorted,--she wept silently, exactly as a child tormented beyond endurance might suddenly weep.... “Oh! I don't care,” I cried, “now. I don't care. Damn the whole system of things! Damn all this patching of the irrevocable! I want to take care of you, Isabel! and have you with me.” “I can't stand it,” she blubbered. “You needn't stand it. I thought it was best for you.... I thought indeed it was best for you. I thought even you wanted it like that.” “Couldn't I live alone--as I meant to do?”