“Dane! Dane!” sighed Cassandra tremblingly, “I wanted you, I wanted you! It has been so long lying there alone, all these days, hearing nothing, knowing nothing, having no one to speak to...”
“Mrs Beverley—?”
“I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure. It was all so misty and confused at the time that I did not know how much the others had heard... Your voice sounded to me like a trumpet call, bringing me back to life, but it might have been only a whisper. I couldn’t tell if she knew, and until I did, I couldn’t speak.”
“And she never—?”
“No! Grizel wouldn’t. She was just her natural self. Did she know then? You talk as if... Did they both know?”
Peignton bowed his head.
“Yes. Both. There was no disguise. There was only one thing in the world for me at that moment, and that was you. Heaven knows what I said, but it was enough. Fate has been against us all the way. If it had not been for that accident, no one need have known.—I could have kept it to myself.”
“Oh, Dane, would that have been better? Do you think that would have helped me?” Cassandra asked pitifully. “There is only one thing that makes life endurable at this moment, and that is that I do know. It’s wicked; it’s selfish; but it’s true! I was starving with loneliness. All those dreadful days at the sea when she was there, and I saw you together, I was longing to die. It seemed as if I could not endure to go on with life, but when death really came near, I was frightened. It’s terrible to feel your breath go. I think for a few moments I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing after you seized hold of me, until I was lying—like this—with my head on your shoulder, and you were saying—saying...”
Peignton’s breath came in a groan.
“Did I say it? I mean, am I more responsible than for the breath I drew? What I said to you then, Cassandra, said itself. If I had been in my sane senses, I would have killed myself rather than have said them then—before her!”