"I was delayed," he said, "but I have come back at last." Then he dropped into a chair near me. "I went to 17 Graham Square," he said, "and they said you were here. I did not ask a single question. I came straight on here. Am I too late? Don't tell me I am too late."
"Oh, you know it," I answered, "you must know it, you are quite, quite too late—too late for everything, for everything!"
There was a sob in my voice, but I would not let it rise. I saw his brow darkening to a frown of perplexity and alarm, and I turned my eyes away. Had he interpreted a double meaning in my words? Did he really even now guess that he was too late for everything?
"Tell me about your mother," he said, in a choking voice; "is she——?"
He looked at me, and I pointed to my black dress. He uttered a sharp exclamation of pain, and then said slowly—
"I understand, Westenra, I am too late; but, thank God, not too late for everything."
As he said this I think the bitterness of death passed over me; for was he not now quite too late for everything—for the love which I could have given him, for the joy which we might both have shared, had he only come back a little sooner. I almost wished at that bitter moment that he had never returned, that he had really died. The next instant, however, a revulsion came over me, and I found that I was glad, very glad, that he was alive, that he was in the land of the living, that I had a chance of seeing him from time to time.
"To-night," I said to myself, "I will not allow anything to temper my joy. He has come back, he is alive. No matter though I must never be his wife, I am glad, glad to see him again."
"I will tell you all about what kept me," he continued, for he half read my thoughts. "We were wrecked, as of course you saw in the papers, off Port Adelaide, and nearly every soul on board perished."
"But your name was not in the lists," I answered.