Diana still held David's jacket. She slipped her hand into the breast-pocket, and drew out a sealed envelope.
"Sir Deryck," she said, "this is a letter from David to me, which I was to receive after his death. Do you think I may read it now?"
The doctor glanced back at the bed. A nurse stood waiting with the hypodermic and the strychnine for which he had asked. The house surgeon, on one knee, had his fingers on David's wrist. He met the question in the doctor's eyes, and shook his head.
"Yes, I think you may read it now," said Sir Deryck gently; and closed the door.
[CHAPTER XXXVI]
DIANA LEARNS THE TRUTH
Diana passed to her room, with the sense of all around her being dream-like and unreal.
When the unexpected, beyond all imagining, suddenly takes place in a life, its every-day setting loses reality; its commonplace surroundings become intangible and vague. There seemed no solidity about the stone floors and passages of the hospital; no reality about the ceaseless roar of London traffic without.