her refusal should have the effect of dissociating them in those wider interests and sympathies to which he had pledged himself.  He was not one to draw back.  And if he had alarmed or offended her, he appealed to her charity—­to that great kindness which she seemed eager to extend to all living creatures.  How could such a vision of possible happiness have arisen in his mind without his making one effort, however desperate, to realize it?  At the worst, she would forgive.

This was, in brief, the substance of what he wrote; but when, after many an anxious re-reading, he put the letter in an envelope, he was miserably conscious how little it conveyed of all the hope and desire that had hold of his heart.  But then, he argued with himself, if she inclined her ear so far, surely he would have other and better opportunities of pleading with her; whereas, if he had been dreaming of impossibilities, then he and she would meet the more easily in the future that he had not given too vehement an expression to all the love and admiration he felt for her.  He could not sacrifice her friendship also—­her society—­the chances of listening from time to time to the musical low, soft voice.

Carrying this fateful letter in his hand, he went down stairs and out into the cool night air.  And now he was haunted by a hundred fears.  Again and again he was on the point of turning back to add something, to alter something, to find some phrase that would appeal more closely to her heart.  And then all of a sudden he convinced himself that he should not have written at all.  Why not have gone to see her, at any risk, to plead with herself?  But then he would have had to write to beg for a tete-a-tete interview; and would not that be more distinctly alarming than this roundabout epistle, which was meant to convey so much indirectly?  Finally, he arrived at the pillar letter-box:  and this indisputable fact brought an end to his cogitations.  If he had gone walking onward he would have wasted the night in fruitless counsel.  He would have repeated again and again the sentences he had used; striven to picture her as she read; wondered if he ought not still to go back and strengthen his prayer.  But now it was to be yes or no.  Well, he posted the letter; and then he breathed more freely.  The die was cast, for good or ill.

And, indeed, no sooner was the thing done than his spirits rose considerably, and he walked on with a lighter heart.  This solitary London, all lamp-lit and silent, was a beautiful city. “Schlaf selig und suss,” the soft stirring of the night-wind seemed to say:  let her not dread the message the morning would bring!  He thought of the other cities she must have visited; and if—­ah, the dream of it!—­if he and she were to go away together to behold the glories of the moonlight on the lagoon, and the wonders of the sunrise among the hills!  He had been in Rome, he remembered, a wonderful coronet of rubies:  would not that do for the beautiful black masses of hair?  Or pearls?  She did not appear to have much jewellery.  Or rather—­seeing that such things are possible between husband and wife—­would she not accept the value, and far more than the value, of any jewellery she could desire, to be given away in acts of kindness?  That would be more like Natalie.