"Jasper, do you think that you could cease to love me?"
"Claire, how can you ask it?"
"You are quite sure? You remember what mother said?"
"Claire, love is strong as death. How does the text run? 'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.' Claire, you must believe that!"
"'Strong as death,'" she murmured. "Yes, I believe it. What a lovely text that is!"
The boat touched shore at Streatley, and we stepped out.
"Jasper," she said again at parting that night, "you have no doubt, no grain of doubt, about my question, and the answer? 'Strong as death,' you are sure?"
For answer I strained her to my heart.
O fool and blind! O fool and blind!
The night that was big with Tom's fate had come. The Coliseum was crowded as we entered. In those days the theatre had no stalls, so we sat in the front row of the dress circle, Tom having in his modesty refused a box. He was behind the scenes until some five minutes before the play began, so that before he joined me I had ample time to study the house and look about for some sign of Claire.