He told her of his flight; of the unhinged state of his mind when he left home; of his physical condition which brought him to the verge of death; of how he would have died but for the care of a stranger—a poor white, who later robbed him, and was subsequently buried in his name. He told her of his slow recovery in a native hut; of the fierce craving for alcohol which assailed him as soon as he was able once more to get about.
“I could not write to you then,” he said. “I felt unfit to breathe your name.”
He went on to speak of the journey to England, still with his vice in the ascendant. He had given way to it in England. His illness had sapped his will-power and he was at the mercy of his desires once more. Then came the war. He joined up with the intention of making good. Until he had made good he was resolved that he would not write.
The rest of the story, of his early capture and his ineffectual efforts to communicate with her, he described briefly. He gave a detailed account of the period following his release; of his tedious convalescence; of his longing for her; of his time of probation, during which he tested his endurance until satisfied that he had won a final victory over himself. He told of his voyage out; of his wish to break the news of his return to her himself.
“It was unlikely that you believed me to be still alive,” he said. “And I did not want to give you a shock by writing when, by the exercise of a little patience, I could tell you all this, and—”
He broke off abruptly. In his imagination he had anticipated her gladness, had pictured their mutual joy in the reunion, when, with his arms about her, he would tell her the story of his absence, and with his kisses comfort her for the sorrow that was past. This home-coming was so different from anything he had conceived.
“I knew nothing of the finding of the body of a man supposed to be me,” he said. “That was one of the unforeseen accidents of circumstance which create an aftermath of deplorable consequences. We are the victims of circumstance. It is useless to impute blame to any one. The facts remain. But for Jim’s positive testimony you would not have re-married. Without some proof of my death, you would have gone on hoping, I believe.”
“Paul!—Oh, Paul!” she sobbed, and held out her two hands towards him in a gesture of pathetic helplessness.
He took them in his. And abruptly with the feel of her hands in his, his reserve broke down; the hardness went out of his eyes. He gathered her to him and kissed her and held her close in his embrace.