"Mavis!" he said once or twice.
I put my hand on the latch.
"Don't speak to me!" I said.
In my room, I sat down by the window and tried to think what it all meant. For a time, I was incapable of directed thought. My dream came to me, the dream I had had so long ago, that nightmare in which my unknown poet had changed to the semblance of the man I had met and disliked on meeting, William Denton. So it was true then! After a little, I thought of my letters, my silly, fragile girl-dreams, written for the One, mercilessly exposed to the eyes of the Other. In my desk drawer lay yet another letter, unmailed, thank God! A letter in which I had said I wanted him back, wanted the comfort and the understanding his letters had brought me once again. Fool—fool and blind! And all the time, this talented trickster had known and laughed: had written me the friendly, lovely letters with his tongue in his cheek: had even spoken to me of love!
I went over to the drawer and took out my Diary. All lies! Some day I must burn it. But not yet. It was like a living thing to me. The little blue book fell open and certain words leaped out at me: "Diary, I have found him.... I've the heart and brain and beautiful spirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in my consciousness. Richard Warren! Richard Warren!..."
I closed the book and laid it back with the letters. A great sheaf of thin, typewritten pages ... all lies....
Uncle John had been in the plot then: and Wright Penny. It was very clear to me now.
I took from my neck the jade lucky-charm which "Richard Warren" had sent me and flung it out of the window. Wiggles, prowling beneath, barked happily and set out to retrieve it. Even Wiggles was not mine! Nothing I had had was mine!
I laid my head on the desk and cried bitterly. It's hard to see the dreams go: to watch the castle you have builded on the shifting sands crumble and fall. These things had meant so much to me, ill and prisoned, and had continued to make a little, inner life for me, after the physical prison doors had opened.
If only by a miracle I could have been back in Green Hill, in my rose-grey room, never to walk again, and with Richard Warren's letters coming to me, out of the Unknown.