They parted, unromantically enough, in front of St. George's Hospital. He called a hansom for her, and stood holding her hand, one moment longer, possibly, than was strictly necessary, looking intently into her face as he did so.
"Will you think of me sometimes?"
"Yes, surely."
"Good-bye, Vera."
"Good-bye, John. God bless you wherever you may go."
She got into her hansom, and he told the cabman where to drive her; then he lifted his hat to her with grave politeness, and walked away in the opposite direction. It was a common-place enough parting, and yet these two never saw each other's faces again in this world.
So it is with our lives. Some one or other who has been a part of our very existence for a space goes his way one day, and we see him no more. For a little while our hearts ache, and we shed tears in secret for him who is gone, but by-and-by we get to understand that he is part of our past, never, to be recalled, and after a while we get used to his absence; we think of him less and less, and the death of him, who was once bound up in our very lives, strikes us only with a mild surprise, hardly even tinged with a passing melancholy.
"Poor old so-and-so, he is dead," we say. "What a time it is since we met," and then we go our way and think of him no more.
But Vera knew that, in all human probability, she would never see him again, this man, who had once so nearly been her husband. It was another link of her past life severed. It saddened her, but she knew it was inevitable.
The little letter-case, at all events, was safely hers; and for many a night Vera slept with it under her pillow.