.

Here I once more pulled myself up.

Such thoughts were no kind of proper preparation for what I might have to endure.

My work that night was to be based on love, on hope, on self-sacrifice for the woman who in all the world was the closest to my heart, whose future I was to share, whether that sharing might lead me to Hell or Heaven.

The hand which undertook such a task must have no trembling.
Still, those horrible memories had, I am bound to say, a useful part in my preparation for the ordeal.