“You mean . . . what . . . what I mean?,” I stammered.
As she turned, her eyes were blinded with tears; and her hands groped for support.
“Darling, if it had been any one else, should I have had to say ‘I need you’? . . . When I saw the great cruel headlines, I hoped and prayed that I might die . . . till I knew you were being sorry for me. You’re all I have; and I promised myself I’d repay you for all your patience.” She could go on no longer; and her terrible tearless sobbing shook her till I feared that her heart must break. “I can’t be brave any longer.” As she once more hid her face against my chest, I could feel her whole body trembling in the last vain effort to restrain her weeping. “When . . . when . . . when did you hear?”
“Twelve days ago,” I answered, as I led her to a chair.
“The day he died. You . . . didn’t tell me, George. Did you think I shouldn’t see?”
“Strictly speaking, I didn’t hear for certain. I knew he was dying . . .”
“There was a long article in The Times. Oh, so cold! . . . I knew he was terribly ill. That’s what made me so ill this summer, though I couldn’t tell you before. I thought you might guess; the doctor did. I’ve been going up and down, up and down, as he got better or worse. The afternoon he died I fainted; and they all thought I was dead too. Now you understand why I wrote such horrid letters: as he slipped away, I couldn’t bear myself. I did try to keep it all to myself. I knew how I hurt you by talking about him. But no one told me anything! . . . I couldn’t ask Lady Lane for fear she’d say I’d killed him. And he died before I could ask him to forgive me.”
Barbara was no longer trying to control her tears; and I was no longer thinking of anything but a means of comforting her.
“He didn’t feel there was anything to forgive,” I assured her.
“Ah, that was the way he talked!”