"Thank you," said Diana. "It would have troubled me greatly to have missed this evening's mail. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Holdsworth."
Leaning back in the motor, on her homeward way, her heart felt sick at the suspense through which she had passed.
A reaction set in. The chill of a second winter nipped the bloom of her summer, and the rich fulfilment promised by her golden autumn. The fact that it seemed such an impossible horror that one of her tender love-letters should really reach David, proved to her the fallacy of the consolation she had found in writing them.
It placed him far away—and far away forever. He would never know; he would never care; he would never come.... It meant no more than we intended it should mean.... Good-bye, my wife.
Tears stole from beneath Diana's closed lids, and rolled silently down her cheeks.
Your wife, who loves you and longs for you! But David would never know. It was so true—oh, so true! But David would never know.