“I was unnerved, and begged him to keep up hope and courage—not to think about the money, but to let us lend it. My beloved one left everything to me; and I was sure, if he were alive, he would wish me to make that offer to a brother soldier. I felt, even while I was speaking, that if I were in my cousin’s place, I should refuse the operation because I’d rather die than live on as a helpless invalid, a burden to myself and others. But it wouldn’t have been human not to encourage that poor sufferer to endure existence, if he could. So I tried my best, and I was very excited and worked up by the sight of his emotion. Suddenly he spoke again. He said that without an incentive to live, he wouldn’t trouble about the operation, and the only incentive he could possibly have would be my marrying him, before he went under the anesthetic. Besides, he couldn’t accept money from me, when he saw no way of repaying it, unless I were his wife. I would rather he had killed me than force me to make such a decision as that!
“Perhaps if I’d been calmer, I might have dared to refuse, realizing that his love of life was very strong indeed, and that when he had thought things over, he would surely consent to the operation without the horrible sacrifice he asked of me. But I was at the point of breaking down, myself. I couldn’t see anything clearly. It seemed to me that I had to save a life, if it could be saved, at any cost. And then, my future mattered so little to me then. The thought in my mind at the time was, that to be the nurse of a broken soldier who’d given himself for his country, was at least a mission in life. As it was, I had none left. Also, it may be that deep down under my conscious thought was another: that according to the surgeon’s expert opinion, my cousin was most unlikely to live. Why not give him the incentive he asked for, to face the ordeal, and let him die happy—since that one thing seemed to mean happiness for him? Almost before I knew what I was doing, I promised. Then it was sprung upon me the next day, that if the operation were to be done at all, it must be done soon. I had to keep my word. And what followed was a nightmare: a second wedding by special license, a bedside marriage with a dying man, words of farewell, and the surgeon and anesthetist arriving in their white robes—like undertakers.
“When I heard that he had come through the operation with his life, I knew instantly what wicked hope must have been hiding in my heart. A sickening disappointment crept like poison through my blood. I had to do my duty, though, and live up to the obligations I’d undertaken so recklessly. After a few weeks, mother and I brought the invalid home—to the home my beloved one had given me! My life seems to have been one long series of mistakes, but I don’t think I’ve sinned enough to deserve the punishment I have to endure now. It is too much for me. How am I to bear it, and keep my soul’s honor? The memory of my love, his ways, and his looks follow me from room to room of his house, and walk with me by the dear lake, and in the garden paths. I might have found peace if I’d left myself a right to live with that memory. But I haven’t. I’ve put a man in his place, a man whose body is helpless as that of a little child, yet whose soul is a giant of hateful jealousy. He is jealous of the dead. I hadn’t guessed a man could be like that. I must tell you no more. I must try not to be cruel or utterly disloyal both to living and dead—and to my own self-respect, such as I have left.
“I have kept my love’s name. I bargained for that, before I promised my cousin to marry him. It was the one possession I couldn’t consent to give up. If you will stand by me as my friend after all this that I’ve told you—if you can say that, in spite of everything, I have any right to the comfort you’ve given, address your next letter to Lady Denin.
“Yours gratefully, from the heart, whatever your decision may be. B. D.”
If he would “stand by her, as her friend”?
Denin could not wait to write. He cabled recklessly. “You have done no wrong. Take all the comfort you need. What you suffer is not punishment. It is martyrdom.”
“God help her!” he prayed. “And let me help her, too—my Barbara!”
He thought of the girl yearningly, as of a tortured child with the heart of a woman. His pain was peace compared to hers; and it was he—the blind man he called “clear-seeing”—who had thrown her to the wolves. If he had not been too blind to see her love, he would have shown his for her as he had not dared to show it, that day in the old garden. Their marriage would have been a real marriage, binding Barbara so indissolubly to him that not to save a life could she have broken the bond. By this time, they would have been together in their home, and not his memory but himself would follow her through the rooms and by the dreamy lake at Gorston Old Hall. Yet even so, could he ever have known the girl from tip to tip of her soul’s wings, as he saw himself destined to know her now, with six thousand miles of sea and land and one man’s death and another man’s life between them? Would he have learned from her lips and eyes the delicate truth of an exquisite worship, as he had learned it to-day from her written tribute to a dead soldier?