Surprised, Anstice owned to his twenty-nine years.
"And I am twenty-six. Hilda was twenty-four last year. Well, all my life she has been the one—the only—woman in the world for me. We've been engaged four years; her people wouldn't sanction it till she was twenty, but we always knew we were made for one another, and Hilda used to say she would rather be my wife than marry the richest, the most famous man on earth!"
Suddenly Anstice heard her soft voice in his ear.
"To marry him ... perhaps in time to bear his children, would be to me the most glorious destiny in the world...."
A spasm of uncontrollable anguish convulsed his features for a moment; but Cheniston was too intent on his own self-revelation to notice.
"Life—without—Hilda seems impossible somehow." He laughed drearily. "We have always been so happy together ... I can't imagine going on without her."
He paused, but Anstice said nothing. He did not know what to say.
"I wonder—can I go on? Is it really required of me that I should continue to hang on to an existence which is absolutely devoid of all attraction, of all meaning?" He fixed his blue eyes on the other's face. "You're a doctor, aren't you?"
Anstice nodded.
"Yes."