Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an answer to her tender, exalted words.
"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."
He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you, Amaryllis—Sweetheart!" he said.
And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife asking her to meet him in Brook Street.
"I must see her—I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.
And late at night he wrote to Denzil—it was just that he should do this.
"My wife is going to have a baby—if only it should be a son, then it will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family will be saved, and be able to carry oh."
He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been made by him.
Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between them did not exist. He—Denzil—in these last seven weeks had been extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would think of other subjects.
He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.