A decision... and a betrayal

In my novel, The Girl from Simon's Bay, local girl Louise Ahrendts and her British Naval lover, Lt. David Horrocks, face immense obstacles to their romance. For one, David is already married. It may be a marriage of convenience encouraged by his family, but his wife does not deserve to be cast aside. Then there is the fact that Louise is mixed race and David is white. Although the action in the book pre-dates apartheid, inter-racial relationships in South Africa were frowned upon by the society of the day. If their romance is revealed, their integrity and careers would be compromised, and family pressure would be heaped upon them from both sides.

Yet David and Louise believe they are meant to be together. They are soulmates. David asks his wife for a divorce and tells Louise to wait for him until after the war. And she does so, even though she knows that marriage will require her to leave the land of her birth and find acceptance abroad, far from all she has ever known.
Fate steps in.
Before the war's end, David's wife finds out that she is expecting their child.
She gives David an ultimatum:
Choose between your lover and your child.

In anguish, he writes to Louise.
I've asked Elizabeth to reconsider but she is adamant. I have offered a generous settlement but she has refused. Yet I love my daughter, who is an innocent victim of this terrible bargaining. I also realise that no child should ever be left solely in the care of someone who can impose such a brutal ultimatum.
This means that we can never marry - I am weeping as I write these words.
Please don't wait any longer for me, my beautiful, glorious Louise. I cannot come back for you. Forgive me for allowing us to believe that I could, and that we could be together. Forgive me.

Can Louise forgive him? Will they ever meet again?
And what about the secret she is keeping from him?

More next time...