"If I stay another minute I shall be too late," he said.
There was no time for me to explain. One moment's clasp of hands—one quick, yet clinging, kiss—and he was gone!
Gone from me again—back to fight in France!
I stood looking straight before me with an odd feeling as if I were turning to stone. Why had I not thought of getting into the cab and driving to Victoria with him, without going on to the platform?
What a miserable good-bye I had had—I, who should have had the tenderest!
Yesterday morning, when we had left home, his good-bye to his sister and to the naval cadet had been sweet. He had leaned out of the railway carriage window looking with misty eyes at his father still standing on the platform of the East Coast town station, and had said to Vera and to me:
"Dear father! I haven't been half good enough to him."
And I—I had had to part from him, through no fault of his or mine, as if we were going to meet again in a few hours!
It is strange how vividly all these pictures of his whole past life have flashed across my mind again as I have been sitting here waiting for him!