“I can’t see the difference.”
“It was different, though. Besides, there was no blizzard impending. In my case the storm made it doubly perilous to stay.”
“It made the going worse!” she retorted in a hard voice.
He turned his head, and their eyes met; he felt almost as keen a shame as if he, and not Faunce, had done this thing. He saw that to her it was unpardonable. She would never see any reason or excuse for it. If she had loved her husband, then Overton’s return had wrecked her life.
“I’ve made you wretched!” he exclaimed with profound emotion. “It’s come to me again and again, since my return, that it must be dreadful for a man to come back from the dead. When we die—or people think we’re dead—our places close over our graves; there’s no niche left for us any more. To come back is to disrupt the tranquillity of the life that’s begun to flow in new courses over the surface of the grave. That’s what I’ve done—I’ve come back and wrecked your happiness!”
She shook her head vehemently, tears rising in her eyes.
“No, I never had it. I know now I only imagined. I never had any happiness at all!”
“Diane!”
Her cry had gone to his heart. It was more than he could bear. He caught her hands in his again and held them.
“Don’t say that, for I can’t bear it—no man who loved you could bear to hear you say that!”