She just said—
“Oh, Hughie, Hughie!” and fell on her knees by the bedside.
And like two children who have lost each other in some dismal, dark forest, when night is coming on, they found each other again. There was no need of any words at first. Edith did not ask him why he was crying, for she knew, and he did not ask why she had come to him, for he knew that he needed her. That was why she came.
Then soon, still kneeling there, she confessed to him all the blackness of her thoughts, and heard him tell her that it was not she. That was true, too. Hugh, anyhow, utterly believed it, and that was absolutely all that mattered.
But there was more still to tell, and though this morning Edith had planned not to tell Hugh yet, now she knew it to be impossible not to tell him. For had she known it then (she knew it now), it was not only her care and solicitude for him that bade her be silent, but also her pride, or what came nearest that, the same thing that ever and again through these weeks had made a gateless barrier between them, the same thing that had made her say that she could bear anything but pity. It was consistent with all that was fine and high about her that she should be intolerant of the pity of the world, of the pity of her friends even, of Peggy even, that she should hold her head up even when the worst hours were on her, and should be polite and considerate of her nurse, of her servants, of all who did not matter. But there was one pity which could not hurt—Hugh’s—and it was his right to know all she knew. She had better tell him now; there must never any more be concealment between them.
They had gone out on the balcony again, for she would not stop long in his room, and then she told him. The gray still world was round them, a gray still sky overhead; everything spoke of that moment of stagnation, when life, languid with winter, halts, unable yet to make the first effort of regeneration. But in her the effort of regeneration was made; as she told him she knew content, she knew that all that had happened, and all that might happen, all her own shortcomings and lapses of courage, were nothing, were unable to live or exist on the plane where Love dwelt, where she and Hugh dwelt. And she had thought (though now she had only an incredulous smile for the thought) that there had even been a barrier between him and her.
“There is more I have to say to you, dear,” she said, “but I have nothing to be ashamed of in this, for, indeed, it was not my fault. Hughie, there were things the doctor told me this morning which I asked him not to tell you. But I will tell you. Just this. My heart is weak; he does not recommend me to stop much longer here. The air is too stimulating.”
Hugh looked imploringly at her.
“But is it worse?” he said. “You told me it was rather weak. And yet the winter seemed to suit you so well.”
It was no use concealing things.