"No one in the world could have been so kind," she said.
"It's been the best time of my life," I replied. "There have even been moments when I've thanked God for your troubles since, in a way, I was able to bear them."
At that she buried her face in her hands and for some moments I could get no word from her at all. She sobbed as though her heart were breaking and I sat there on the seat opposite to her wondering why God had made creatures so incomprehensible as women. She wanted of her own accord to return to Dominica, yet here she was at her departure, crying as though a very world of desolation was before her. It was more than I could understand.
I had to leave the carriage at last. She still sat there weeping, with the bundle of picture papers which I had bought lying on her lap. It was only as the train began to move out of the station that she threw them on to the seat beside her and, rising impulsively to her feet, she leant out of the window.
"Why," she whispered excitedly, "why have you been so good to me?"
I could have laughed at that. For surely she must have guessed by this; but thank God a sense of the ludicrous saved me from telling her then that I loved her. Imagine the declaration of a lover, running by the side of the carriage as a train steamed out of the station.
"God bless you," was all I said and for a long while I stood watching that little white face of hers as she leant out of her carriage window. Suddenly then, so quickly as if some one had drawn her back within, she disappeared. At that I turned away and walked home alone.
It was two days later that Moxon brought me a telegram to my room.
"Come over at once," it read, "most important that I should see you." And it was signed Bellwattle.
"Is the boy waiting for an answer?" I asked.