Chapter XXXVI: Diana Learns the Truth

Diana passed to her room, with the sense of all around her being dream-like and unreal.

When the unexpected, beyond all imagining, suddenly takes place in a life, its every-day setting loses reality; its commonplace surroundings become intangible and vague. There seemed no solidity about the stone floors and passages of the hospital; no reality about the ceaseless roar of London traffic without.

The only real things to Diana, as she sank into her armchair, were that she held David's coat clasped in her arms; that David's sealed letter was in her hand; that David himself lay, hovering between life and death, just down the corridor.

At first she could only clasp his coat to her breast, whispering brokenly: "He has come back to me! David, David! He has come back to me!"

Then she realised how all-important it was, in case he suddenly recovered consciousness, that she should know at once what he had said to her in his farewell letter.

With an effort she opened it, drew out the closely written sheets, and read it; holding the worn and dusty coat still clasped closely to her.

"MY DEAR WIFE,--When you read these lines, I shall have
reached the Land from whence there is no return--'the Land
that is very far off.'

"Very far off; yet not so far as Central Africa. Perhaps,
as you are reading, Diana, I shall be nearer to you than we
think; nearer, in spirit, than now seems possible. So do
not let this farewell letter bring you a sense of
loneliness, my wife. If spirits can draw near, and hover
round their best belovèd, mine will bend over you, as you
read.

"Does it startle you, that I should call you this? Be
brave, dear heart, and read on; because--as I shall be at
last in the Land from whence there is no return--I am going
to tell you the whole truth; trusting you to understand,
and to forgive.

"Oh, my wife, my belovèd! I have loved you from the very
first; loved you with my whole being; as any man who loved
_you_, would be bound to love.

"I did not know it, myself, until after I had made up my
mind to do as you wished about our marriage. I had sat up
all night, pondering the problem; and at dawn, after I had
realised that without transgressing against the Divine Will
I could marry you, I suddenly knew--in one revealing
flash--that I loved you, my belovèd--_I loved you_.

"How I carried the thing through, without letting it be
more than you wished, I scarcely know now. It seems to me,
looking back upon those days from this great solitude, that
it was a task beyond the strength of mortal man.

"And it was, Diana. But not beyond the strength of my love
for you. If, as you look back upon our wedding, and the
hours which followed, and--and the parting, my wife, it
seems to you that I pulled it through all right, gauge, by
that, the strength of my love.

"Oh, that evening of our wedding-day! May I tell you? It is
such a relief to be able to tell you, at last. It cannot
harm you to learn how deeply you have been loved. It need
not sadden you, Diana; because every man is the better for
having given his best.

"The longing for you, during those first hours, was so
terrible. I went down to my cabin--you remember that jolly
big cabin, 'with the compliments of the company'--but your
violets stood on the table, everything spoke of you; yet
your sweet presence was not there; and each revolution of
the screw widened the distance between us--the distance
which was never to be recrossed.

"I tried to pray, but could only groan. I took off my coat;
but when I turned to hang it up, I saw my hat, hanging
where you had placed it. I slipped on my coat again. I
could not stay in this fragrance of violets, and in the
desperate sense of loneliness they caused.

"I mounted to the hurricane deck, and paced up and down, up
and down. For one wild moment I thought I would go off,
when the pilot left; hurry back to you, confess all, and
throw myself on your mercy--my wife, my wife!

"Then I knew I could never be such a hound as to do that.
You had chosen me, because you trusted me. You had wedded
me, on the distinct understanding that it was to mean
nothing of what marriage usually means. I had agreed to
this; therefore you were the one woman on the face of God's
earth, whom I was bound in honour not to seek to win.

"Yet, I wanted you, my wife; and the hunger of that need
was such fierce agony.

"I went to the side of the ship. Beating my clenched fists
on the woodwork, seemed to help a little. Then--I looked
over.

"We were surging along through the darkness. I could see
the white foam on the waves, far down below.

"Then--Diana, dare I tell you all?--then the black waters
tempted me. I was alone up there. It would mean only one
headlong plunge--then silence and oblivion. God forgive me,
that in the agony of that moment of Time, I forgot
Eternity.

"But, lifting my eyes, I looked away from those black
waters to where--clear on the horizon--shone a star.

"Somehow that star brought you nearer. It was a thing you
might be seeing also, on this, our wedding-night. I stood
very still and watched it, and it seemed to speak of hope.
I prayed to be forgiven the sin of having harboured, even
for a moment, that black, cowardly temptation.

"Then, all at once, I remembered something. May I tell you,
my wife, my wife? It cannot harm you, after I am dead, that
I should tell you. I remembered that you had laid your
hand for one moment on the pillow in my bunk. At once, I
seemed rich beyond compare. _Your_ hand--your own dear
hand!

"I ran down quickly, and in five minutes I was lying in the
dark, the scent of violets all about me, and my head where
your dear hand had rested. And then--God gave me sleep.

"My wife, I have often had hard times since then; but never
so bad as that first night. And, though I have longed for
you always, I would not have had less suffering; because,
to have suffered less would have been to have loved you
less; and to have loved you less would have been unworthy
of you, Diana;--of you and of myself.

* * * * *

"But what an outpouring! And I meant to write entirely of
bigger and more vital things, in this last letter. Yet I
suppose _I love you_ is the most vital thing of all to me;
and, when it came to being able to tell you fully, I felt
like writing it all down, exactly as it happened. I think
you will understand.

"And now about the present.

"I can't die, miles away from you! Since death has been
coming nearer, a grave out here seems to hold such a horror
of loneliness. It would be rest, to lie beneath the ground
on which your dear feet tread. Also, I am possessed by a
yearning so unutterable to see your face once more, that I
doubt if I _can_ die, until I have seen it.

"So I am coming back to England, by the quickest route;
and, if I live through the journey, I shall get down into
the vicinity of Riverscourt somehow, and just once see you
drive by. You will not see me, or know that I am near; so I
don't break our compact, Diana. It may be a sick man's
fancy, to think that I can do it; yet I believe I shall
pull it through. So, if this comes into your hands, from an
English address, you will know that, most likely, before I
died, I had my heart's desire--one sight of your sweet
face; and, having had it, I died content.

"Ah, what a difference love--the real thing--makes in a
man's life! God forgive me, I can't think or write of my
work. Everything has now slipped away, save thoughts of
you. However, you know all the rest.

"I am writing to ask you not to write again, as I shall be
coming home--only I daren't give you that, as the reason!
And also to beg of you not to leave England. Think what it
would be, if I reached there, only to find you gone!

"And now about the future, my beloved; _your_ future.

"Oh, that picture! You know,--the big one? I can't put on
paper all I thought about it; but--it showed me--I knew at
once--that somehow, some one had been teaching you--what
love means.

"Diana, don't misunderstand me! I trust you always,
utterly. But we both made a horrible mistake. Our marriage
was an unnatural, unlawful thing. It is no fault of yours,
if some one--before you knew what was happening--has made
you care, in something the way I suddenly found I cared for
you.

"And I want to say, that this possibility makes me glad to
leave you free--absolutely free, my wife.

"You must always remember that I want you to have the best,
and to know the best. And if some happy man who loves you
and is worthy can win you, and fill your dear life with the
golden joy of loving--why, God knows, I wouldn't be such a
dog in the manger, as to begrudge you that joy, or to wish
to stand between.

"So don't give me a thought, if it makes you happier to
forget me. Only--if you do remember me sometimes--remember
that I have loved you, always, from the very first, with a
love which would have gladly lived for you, had that been
possible; but, not being possible, gladly dies for you,
that you--at last--may have the best.

"And so, good-bye, my wife.

"Yours ever,

"DAVID RIVERS."