for tuppence. I didn't know he had lachrymal glands at all until a

little while ago. I suppose all love is hysterical-and a little

foolish. Poor mites! Silly little pitiful creatures! How we have

blundered! Think how we must look to God! Well, we'll pity them,

and then we'll inspire him to stiffen up again-and do as we've

determined he shall do. We'll see it through,-we who lie here on

the cliff. They'll be mean at times, and horrid at times; we know

them! Do you see her, a poor little fine lady in a great house,-

she sometimes goes to her room and writes."

"She writes for his BLUE WEEKLY still."

"Yes. Sometimes-I hope. And he's there in the office with a bit

of her copy in his hand."

"Is it as good as if she still talked it over with him before she

wrote it? Is it?"

"Better, I think. Let's play it's better-anyhow. It may be that

talking over was rather mixed with love-making. After all, love-

making is joy rather than magic. Don't let's pretend about that

even… Let's go on watching him. (I don't see why her writing

shouldn't be better. Indeed I don't.) See! There he goes down

along the Embankment to Westminster just like a real man, for all

that he's smaller than a grain of dust. What is running round

inside that speck of a head of his? Look at him going past the

Policemen, specks too-selected large ones from the country. I

think he's going to dinner with the Speaker-some old thing like

that. Is his face harder or commoner or stronger?-I can't quite

see… And now he's up and speaking in the House. Hope he'll

hold on to the thread. He'll have to plan his speeches to the very

end of his days-and learn the headings."

"Isn't she up in the women's gallery to hear him?"

"No. Unless it's by accident."

"She's there," she said.

"Well, by accident it happens. Not too many accidents, Isabel.

Never any more adventures for us, dear, now. No!… They play

the game, you know. They've begun late, but now they've got to.

You see it's not so very hard for them since you and I, my dear, are

here always, always faithfully here on this warm cliff of love

accomplished, watching and helping them under high heaven. It isn't

so VERY hard. Rather good in some ways. Some people HAVE to be

broken a little. Can you see Altiora down there, by any chance?"

"She's too little to be seen," she said.

"Can you see the sins they once committed?"

"I can only see you here beside me, dear-for ever. For all my

life, dear, till I die. Was that-the sin?"…

I took her to the station, and after she had gone I was to drive to

Dover, and cross to Calais by the night boat. I couldn't, I felt,

return to London. We walked over the crest and down to the little

station of Martin Mill side by side, talking at first in broken

fragments, for the most part of unimportant things.

"None of this," she said abruptly, "seems in the slightest degree

real to me. I've got no sense of things ending."

"We're parting," I said.

"We're parting-as people part in a play. It's distressing. But I

don't feel as though you and I were really never to see each other

again for years. Do you?"

I thought. "No," I said.

"After we've parted I shall look to talk it over with you."

"So shall I."

"That's absurd."

"Absurd."

"I feel as if you'd always he there, just about where you are now.

Invisible perhaps, but there. We've spent so much of our lives

joggling elbows."…

"Yes. Yes. I don't in the least realise it. I suppose I shall

begin to when the train goes out of the station. Are we wanting in

imagination, Isabel?"

"I don't know. We've always assumed it was the other way about."

"Even when the train goes out of the station-! I've seen you into

so many trains."

"I shall go on thinking of things to say to you-things to put in

your letters. For years to come. How can I ever stop thinking in

that way now? We've got into each other's brains."

"It isn't real," I said; "nothing is real. The world's no more than

a fantastic dream. Why are we parting, Isabel?"

"I don't know. It seems now supremely silly. I suppose we have to.

Can't we meet?-don't you think we shall meet even in dreams?"

"We'll meet a thousand times in dreams," I said.