Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

the parapet and dived. Like a flash he was after her, and almost before I could reach the edge of the river he was swimming steadily to the steps with the unhappy girl. He bundled her into the cab with but little assistance from me, and, giving a brief excuse — and a louis — to the constable who ran up, we drove off home. He revived her with a million kisses and endearments — rather embar- rassing for a third party — and when her eyes opened and she saw his boyish face she had only one word — “ It isn’t true then ? Oh my God, it isn’t true ? ” — And fell to murmuring his name with every accent of infinite love and tenderness. At his house my astonishment was ten- fold. Ready and waiting for us were hot drinks of every kind, blankets toasting before a splendid fire, a bright open bed in the luxurious room — in ten minutes he had her nude and dry and warm and happy. He dismissed me queerly : “ I suppose I must follow,” he laughed, lifting her tenderly into bed with yet another kiss. “ I’ll tell you about it one day.” So I left them. She was his mistress for more than a year — perhaps is so still. It turned out that he had spent six weeks driving the poor child, whose only folly was her love for him, to suicide, by a calculated series of abominable cruelties, above all by his refusal to return her love. The final “ coup ” was as I have described ; he had foreseen all, provided for all. Such incidents are characteristic of the man ; he had not (I firmly believe) even the excuse of love for her. As I have observed, the “ Nameless Novel ” was written during his wife’s convalescence. The verses which composed the “ Bromo Book ” are due to many occasions. Some are mere exercises in me- tre. If he heard a new form of rhyme, as in the “ Sailor ashore,” he would compose in it, and, lest [12]