He drew her to him, and folded her close.
'I don't think I ought'-- the faltering, broken voice startled her--'I don't know whether I can make you happy.

Dear, dear little Beryl!' At that she put up her mouth instinctively, only to shrink back under the energy of his kiss.

Then they had walked on together, hand in hand; but she remembered that, even before they left the wood, something seemed to have dimmed the extraordinary bliss of the first moment--some restlessness in him--some touch of absent-mindedness, as though he grudged himself his own happiness.
And so it had been ever since.

He had resumed his work at Aldershot, and owing to certain consequences of the wound in 1915 was not likely, in spite of desperate efforts on his own part, to be sent back to the front.

His letters varied just as his presence did.
Something always seemed to be kept back from her--was always beyond her reach.