from her
bed-side: I did not sleep, though I nodded and staggered: for all things
were nothing to me, but her: and for a frightfully long time she
remained comatose. While she was still in this state I took her to a
chalet beyond Villeneuve, three miles away on the mountain-side, a
homely, but very salubrious place which I knew, imbedded in verdures,
for I was desperate at her long collapse, and had hope in the higher
air. And there after three more days, she opened her eyes, and smiled
with me.

It was then that I said to myself: 'This is the noblest, sagest, and
also the most loveable, of the creatures whom God has made in heaven or
earth. She has won my life, and I will live.... But at least, to save
myself, I will put the broadest Ocean that there is between her and me:
for I wish to be a decent being, for the honour of my race, being the
last, and to turn out trumps ... though I do love my dear, God
knows....'

And thus, after only fifty-five days at the chalet, were we forced still
further Westward.

* * * * *

I wished her to remain at Chillon, intending, myself, to start for the
Americas, whence any sudden impulse to return to her could not be
easily accomplished: but she refused, saying that she would come with me
to the coast of France: and I could not say her no.

And at the coast, after thirteen days we arrived, three days before the
New Year, traversing France by steam, air, and petrol traction.

We came to Havre--infirm, infirm of will that I was: for in my deep
heart was the secret, hidden away from my own upper self, that, she
being at Havre, and I at Portsmouth, we could still speak together.

We came humming into the dark town of Havre in a four-seat motor-car
about ten in the evening of the 29th December: a raw bleak night, she,
it was clear, poor thing, bitterly cramped with cold. I had some
recollection of the place, for I had been there, and drove to the quays,
near which I stopped at the _Maire's_ large house, a palatial place
overlooking the sea, in which she slept, I occupying another near.

The next morning I was early astir, searched in the _mairie_ for a map
of the town, where I also found a _Bottin_: I could thus locate the
Telephone Exchange. In the _Maire's_ house, which I had fixed upon to be
her home, the telephone was set up in an alcove adjoining a very stately
_salon_ Louis Quinze; and though I knew that these little dry batteries
would not be