on of two very splendid
personalities--for Edward and the girl were splendid personalities, in
order that a third personality, more normal, should have, after a long
period of trouble, a quiet, comfortable, good time.

I am writing this, now, I should say, a full eighteen months after
the words that end my last chapter. Since writing the words "until
my arrival", which I see end that paragraph, I have seen again for a
glimpse, from a swift train, Beaucaire with the beautiful white tower,
Tarascon with the square castle, the great Rhone, the immense stretches
of the Crau. I have rushed through all Provence--and all Provence no
longer matters. It is no longer in the olive hills that I shall find my
Heaven; because there is only Hell... .

Edward is dead; the girl is gone--oh, utterly gone; Leonora is having
a good time with Rodney Bayham, and I sit alone in Branshaw Teleragh. I
have been through Provence; I have seen Africa; I have visited Asia to
see, in Ceylon, in a darkened room, my poor girl, sitting motionless,
with her wonderful hair about her, looking at me with eyes that did
not see me, and saying distinctly: "Credo in unum Deum omnipotentem....
Credo in unum Deum omnipotentem." Those are the only reasonable words
she uttered; those are the only words, it appears, that she ever
will utter. I suppose that they are reasonable words; it must be
extraordinarily reasonable for her, if she can say that she believes in
an Omnipotent Deity. Well, there it is. I am very tired of it all....

For, I daresay, all this may sound romantic, but it is tiring, tiring,
tiring to have been in the midst of it; to have taken the tickets; to
have caught the trains; to have chosen the cabins; to have consulted
the purser and the stewards as to diet for the quiescent patient who did
nothing but announce her belief in an Omnipotent Deity. That may sound
romantic--but it is just a record of fatigue.

I don't know why I should always be selected to be serviceable. I don't
resent it--but I have never been the least good. Florence selected me
for her own purposes, and I was no good to her; Edward called me to come
and have a chat with him, and I couldn't stop him cutting his throat.

And then, one day eighteen months ago, I was quietly writing in my
room at Branshaw when Leonora came to me with a letter. It was a very
pathetic letter from Colonel Rufford about Nancy. Colonel Rufford had
left the army and had taken up an appointment at a t