the amenities of society. I used
no subterfuges, and made no attempt to disguise my interest in
Cynthia, or to pretend to other interests. I dare say my directness
was smiled upon, as part of the eccentricity of these literary people;
one of Ernest's friends, quite a recluse, and so forth. I gathered as
much a little later on.

Looking back upon it I must suppose that my conduct during the next
week or so would be condemned by most right-thinking people as
ungentlemanly and even dishonourable. I have no inclination to defend
it; and I could not affirm that, at the time, I loved honour more than
Cynthia Lane. To speak the naked truth, I believe I would have
committed forgery, if by doing so I could have won Cynthia for my
wife. The one and only way in which I showed any discretion (and that,
not from any moral scruple, but purely as a matter of tactics) was in
withholding any open declaration to Cynthia herself.

My feeling was that my chance of a life's happiness was confined to
the cruelly short period of a week or two. There was no time for
taking risks. There must be no refusals. I must use my time, every day
of it, I thought, in the effort to win her heart; and trust to the
very end to win her consent. I availed myself fully of my advantage in
living in Dorking while my rival spent his days in London. The
obstacles in my path were such as to justify me in grasping every
possible advantage within reach, I told myself. Every day we met.
Every day I walked and talked with Cynthia. Every day love possessed
me more utterly. And, I believe I may say it, every day Cynthia drew
nearer to me. No word did I breathe of marriage; that which was
arranged, or that which I desired. It seemed to me that every
available moment must be given to the moulding of her heart, to
preparation for the last crucial test, when I should ask her to
sacrifice everything, and cross the Channel and the Rubicon with me.

There is no need for me to burke the words. Cynthia did love me when
she left Dorking for her parents' house in London; not, perhaps, with
the absorbing passion she had inspired in me; yet well enough, as I
was assured, to face social disaster and a break with her family, in
order that she might entrust her life to me.

'Cynthia,' I said, at the end of that last walk, 'London is not to rob
me of you? Promise me!'

'If you call me, I will come,' she said, looking at me through tears,
and well I knew that perfect truth shone in