“You don’t forget him in loving me. But we’re not made in such a way that we can think of everything at once. I don’t believe he suffers. Our love may be happiness to him.” But now he was using mere words. He had fallen back into the world of words. This was not the light he had tried to show her.
“But if love is around us there, it’s around us here, too; yet people, here, suffer terribly. They may go on suffering terribly when they are gone. You can’t know what they feel when they are gone, Bevis.”
“No; I can’t know. We can know nothing, of course. It’s a question of feeling, rather. I don’t feel it as you do, and the reason for that is, I think, that I see more of the truth than you do; that I have more faith.”
He knew his faith; but he no longer felt it. That was because his body was becoming very tired. And her fear, too, had its infecting power. A pang did stir his heart.
Poor Tony. She never knew when to stop; never knew when there was nothing more to be gained. Mercilessly and pitifully she went on: “If it’s still Malcolm, must he not be waiting for me; wanting me? Hasn’t love like that something special and unsharable? Oh, you know it has. It must be two; it can’t be three. How could I go to him, with you? Which of you would be my other self? You know you could not share me. We could not hold each other, like this, and love each other, if Malcolm stood before us now.”
“I know,” he said, and his deep fatigue was in his voice. “Perhaps one must accept that there is loss and suffering always. Perhaps Malcolm does grieve to see you with me. Who can tell? I can’t. I can only say that I don’t feel it so. I can only say that if I felt it so I’d not want to marry you; I couldn’t want you if I felt it so. And even if you yourself felt him so near and real that my love could only hurt you, I’d go away and leave you in peace. But it’s not like that, Tony. It wouldn’t be to leave you in peace. You couldn’t bear to have me go. Something quite different has happened. You’ve fallen in love with me.”
She sat silent in his arms, her head still leaning on his shoulder, and he knew from her slow, careful breathing that she was intensely thinking and that he had not helped her. If only he had not been so tired to begin with, perhaps he might have found something more. But he was now horribly tired and his artificial leg began to pull at him, and though he sat very still, she must at last have guessed at his growing exhaustion, for, raising herself, she drew away, saying, in a dulled and gentle voice: “Shall we walk back? Your leg must be getting stiff.”
He took her hand as she stood beside him and kissed it without speaking, and he saw that she turned her head away then to hide her tears.
They walked slowly up toward the house by the winding path among the heather. Wyndwards stood high and they had to climb a little. Only when they drew near did she speak, and in a trembling voice.
“You’ve shown me all the truth. I’ve been unfaithful. I am unfaithful. If I’d loved him enough, if I’d loved him as he should have been loved, I couldn’t have fallen in love with you.”