hand about me. And I dare say by
now I should often enough have caught it and held it, perhaps kissed
it--who knows? I used to do such things, lightly enough. But, Brand,
when a man has known the touch of THE Woman, and when that touch has
become nothing but a memory; when one is dashed into darkness, and that
memory becomes one of the few things which remain, and, remaining,
brings untold comfort, can you wonder if one fears another touch which
might in any way dim that memory, supersede it, or take away from its
utter sacredness?"

"I understand," said the doctor slowly. "It does not come within my own
experience, but I understand. Only--my dear boy, may I say it?--if the
One Woman exists--and it is excusable in your case to doubt it, because
there were so many--surely her place should be here; her actual touch,
one of the things which remain."

"Ah, say it," answered Garth, lighting another cigarette. "I like to
hear it said, although as a matter of fact you might as well say that
if the view from the terrace exists, I ought to be able to see it. The
view is there, right enough, but my own deficiency keeps me from seeing
it."

"In other words," said the doctor, leaning forward and picking up the
match which, not being thrown so straight as usual, had just missed the
fire; "in other words, though She was the One Woman, you were not the
One Man?"

"Yes," said Garth bitterly, but almost beneath his breath. "I was 'a
mere boy.'"

"Or you thought you were not," continued the doctor, seeming not to
have heard the last remark. "As a matter of fact, you are always the
One Man to the One Woman, unless another is before you in the field.
Only it may take time and patience to prove it to her."

Garth sat up and turned a face of blank surprise towards the doctor.
"What an extraordinary statement!" he said. "Do you really mean it?"

"Absolutely," replied the doctor in a tone of quiet conviction. "If you
eliminate all other considerations, such as money, lands, titles,
wishes of friends, attraction of exteriors--that is to say, admiration
of mere physical beauty in one another, which is after all just a
question of comparative anatomy; if, freed of all this social and
habitual environment, you could place the man and the woman in a mental
Garden of Eden, and let them face one another, stripped of all shams
and conventionalities, soul viewing soul, naked and unashamed; if under
those circumstances she is so truly his mate,