He could still tell you which lamp-post he was striding past when he
realized, with a thrill of relief, that in any case Nan Archdale would
not treat him as would almost certainly do one of those women whom he
had honoured with his cold approval something less than a week ago. Any
one of those women would have regarded what he was now going to ask Nan
to do as an outrage on the conventions of life. But Nan Archdale would
be guided only by what she herself thought right and seemly....

And then, as he turns again into Wimpole Street, as he comes near to
what was once his wife's house, his long steady stride becomes slower. Unwillingly he is living again those doubtful moments when he knocked at
her door, when he gave the surprised maid the confused explanation that
he had a message from the doctor for Mrs. Archdale. He hears the young
woman say, "Mrs. Archdale is just going out, sir. The doctor thought she
ought to take a walk;" and his muttered answer, "I won't keep her a
moment...."

Again he feels the exultant, breathless thrill which seized him when she
slipped, neither of them exactly knew how, into his arms, and when the
sentences he had prepared, the arguments he meant to use, in his hurried
rush up the long street, were all forgotten. He hears himself imploring
her to come away with him now, at once. Is she not dressed to go out? Instinct teaches him for the first time to make to her the one appeal to
which she ever responds. He had meant to tell her what the doctor had
said--to let that explain his great temerity--but instead he tells her
only that he wants her, that he cannot go on living apart from her. Is
there any good reason why they should not start now, this moment, for
Doctors' Commons, in order to see how soon they can be married? So it is that when John Coxeter stands in Wimpole Street, so typical a
Londoner belonging to the leisured and conventional class that none of
the people passing by even glance his way, he lives again through the
immortal moment when she said, "Very well." *       *       *       *       *

To this day, so transforming is the miracle of love, Nan Coxeter
believes that during their curious honeymoon it was she who was taking