You know I'd have crawled over broken glass to marry you, had the circumstances been different.

You should have a husband who treasures you, for no man can possibly be more fortunate than the one who has your hand.

Could he not understand what he was asking her? To become his lover knowing that she would be set aside at a specific date, knowing that even as he lay with her, his heart and mind were already contemplating his blissful future with Mrs. Englewood?

"Live as if there is no tomorrow " He'd already tried that, in the Lake District. But tomorrows had an inexorable persistence about them: They always arrived.