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And then—and then—Neil said, ‘My sister Sylvia,’ and I was looking into the lovely face of the girl I had just seen being suffocated to death…and I was introduced to her fiancé, a tall dark man with a scar down the left side of his face

Well—that’s that I’d like you to think and say what you’d have done in irl—and here was theher—and they were to be married in about a month’s time…

Had I—or had I not—had a prophetic vision of the future? Would Sylvia and her husband coiven that room (the best spare roorim reality?

What was I to do about it? Could I do anything? Would anyone—Neil—or the girl herself—would they believe me?

I turned the whole business over and over in my mind the week I was down there To speak or not to speak? And almost at once another complication set in You see, I fell in love with Sylvia Carslake the firston earth…And in a way that tied my hands

And yet, if I didn’t say anything, Sylvia would marry Charles Crawley and Craould kill her…

And so, the day before I left, I blurted it all out to her I said I expect she’d think , but I swore sole just as I told it to her and that I felt if she was detere experience

She listened very quietly There was sory at all When I’d finished, she just thankedlike an idiot, ‘I did see it I really did see it,’ and she said, ‘I’m sure you did if you say so I believe you’

Well, the upshot was that I went off not knohether I’d done right or been a fool, and a week later Sylvia broke off her engagement to Charles Crawley

After that the war happened, and there wasn’telse Once or then I was on leave, I came across Sylvia, but as far as possible I avoided her

I loved her and wanted her just as badly as ever, but I felt so to e to myself that I could only justify the action I had taken bymy attitude a purely disinterested one

Then, in 1916, Neil was killed and it fell to me to tell Sylvia about his lastafter that Sylvia had adored Neil and he had been rief I justthat a bullet ht end the whole

But there was no bullet with ht ear and one was deflected by a cigarette case in h unscathed Charles Craas killed in action at the beginning of 1918

Somehow that made a difference I came home in the autuht to Sylvia and told her that I loved her I hadn’t ht away, and you could have knocked me doith a feather when she askedabout Crawley and she said, ‘But why did you think I broke it off with him?’ and then she told me that she’d fallen in love with me just as I’d done with her—from the very first minute

I said I thought she’d broken off her engagehed scornfully and said that if you loved a man you wouldn’t be as cowardly as that, and ent over that old vision ofmore

‘Well, there’s nothing much to tell for some time after that Sylvia and I were married and ere very happy But I realized, as soon as she was really mine, that I wasn’t cut out for the best kind of husband I loved Sylvia devotedly, but I was jealous, absurdly jealous of anyone she so much as smiled at It amused her at first, I think she even rather liked it It proved, at least, how devoted I was

As for me, I realized quite fully and un a fool ofall the peace and happiness of our life together I knew, I say, but I couldn’t change Every tiot a letter she didn’t show to hed and talked with anysulky and watchful

At first, as I say, Sylvia laughed at e joke Then she didn’t think the joke so funny Finally she didn’t think it a joke at all—

And slowly, she began to draay from me Not in any physical sense, but she withdrew her secret hts were She was kind—but sadly, as thought fro distance

Little by little I realized that she no longer loved me Her love had died and it was I who had killed it…

The next step was inevitable, I foundit…

Then Derek Wainwright ca that I hadn’t He had brains and a witty tongue He was good-looking, too, and—I’ood chap As soon as I saw him I said to myself, ‘This is just the man for Sylvia…’

She fought against it I know she struggled…but I gave her no help I couldn’t I was entrenched inlike hell—and I couldn’t stretch out a finger to save s worse I let loose at her one day—a string of savage, unwarranted abuse I was nearly s I said were cruel and untrue and I knehile I was saying thee pleasure in saying them…

I remember how Sylvia flushed and shrank…

I drove her to the edge of endurance

I reo on…’

When I caht the house was empty—empty There was a note—quite in the traditional fashion

In it she said that she was leaving eworthy for a day or two After that she was going to the one person who loved her and needed her I was to take that as final