til I had finished. Then she took
my hand.

"I'm grateful," she said, "and I'm proud. And I know that I love you
beyond all things on earth. But I won't give you an answer till I'm up
and about on my feet again."

"Why?" I insisted.

"Don't ask. And don't mention the matter again. You must be good to me,
because I'm ill, and do what I say."

She smiled and fondled my hand, and cajoled a reluctant promise from me.

Then came days in which, for no obvious reason, Lola received me
with anxious frightened diffidence, and spoke with constraint. The
cheerfulness which she had hitherto exhibited gave place to dull
depression. She urged me continually to leave Berlin, where, as she
said, I was wasting my time, and return to my work in London.

"I shall be all right, Simon, perfectly all right, and as soon as I can
travel, I'll come straight to London."

"I'm not going to let you slip through my fingers again," I would say
laughingly.

"But I promise you, I'll swear to you I'll come back! Only I can't bear
to think of you idling around a woman's sick-bed, when you have such
glorious things to do at home. That's a man's work, Simon. This isn't."

"But it is a man's work," I would declare, "to devote himself to the
woman he loves and not to leave her helpless, a stranger in a strange
land."

"I wish you would go, Simon. I do wish you would go!" she would say
wearily. "It's the only favour I've ever asked you in my life."

Man-like, I looked within myself to find the reason for these earnest
requests. In casting off my jester's suit had I also divested myself of
the power to be a decently interesting companion? Had I become merely a
dull, tactless, egotistical bore? Was I, in simple, naked, horrid fact,
getting on an invalid's delicate nerves? I was scared of the new picture
of myself thus presented. I became self-conscious and made particular
efforts to bring a little gaiety into our talk; but though she smiled
with her lips, the cloud, whatever it was, hung heavily on her mind, and
at the first opportunity she came back to the ceaseless argument.

In despair I took her nurse into my confidence.

"She is right," said the nurse. "You are doing her more harm than good.
You had better go away and write to her daily from London."

"But why--but why?" I clamoured. "Can't you give me any reason?"

The nurse glanced at me with a touch of feminine scorn.

"The bandages will soon be removed."

"Well?" said I.

"The s