“You were wrong in marrying me, Diane. You married a coward. Overton’s a great man, a greater man than even you have thought. He’s willing to cloak your husband’s craven fear to save you—to hush it all up for your sake.”
She gasped.
“To hush it up? What—oh, Arthur, tell me, tell me what it is! I don’t know what you’re saying!”
Then he told her, slowly, deliberately, not sparing himself, as he had told Dr. Gerry months before.
“I left him to die,” he ended in a hard voice. “He was alive, I knew he was alive, but I was afraid to die like that. I didn’t see a hope of saving us both, so I saved myself.”
She drew away with a shudder, her large eyes fixed on his face. He saw the recoil, the outraged incredulity in her face.
“You—you couldn’t have done that, Arthur—it’s impossible! You’re ill, you’re not telling me the truth—it can’t be!”
He saw how she took it, saw that he had struck a death-blow at her love for him. Something seemed to give way in his heart. He turned and sank into a seat by the hearth with a groan.
“It’s true. You know it’s true, Diane. Overton’s here, isn’t he? You’ve seen him, and you remember that I told you myself that I was with him when he died? He isn’t dead. Don’t you see it was a lie? I tell you I’m a coward!” He seemed possessed to make a clean breast of it, to hide nothing, to get the relief of cauterizing the wound. “You married a coward.”
She put her hand out blindly and caught at the table. She felt that she was falling, and she clung to the support.