Her name was Clara Goodwin; she requested me to go always to the Horse Guards to discover in what part of the world Colonel Goodwin might be serving when I wanted to write to her.

I, in return, could give no permanent address, so I related my history from the beginning.

'To write to you would be the same as writing to a river,' she said; and insisted that I should drop the odious name of Roy when I grew a man.

My father quarrelled with Colonel Goodwin.

Months after I felt as if I had only just been torn from Clara, but she stood in a mist, irrecoverably distant.