And she did run, literally, when she had passed beyond the limits of the village. Holding up her narrow skirt, her parasol under her arm, her precious burden of mail hugged tightly, she left the path, and again entered upon the enchanted forest.
She knew of a place where she would read Anthony's letter, a warm little hollow, with a still silver pool beyond, a pool which, with its upstanding reeds and rushes, was merged at its farthest edge into a blurred purple background.
Safe at last in her retreat she opened Anthony's letter, forgetting the others in her eagerness, seeing only the firm, simple script which crowded a dozen pages.
He began quietly, but evidently, as he wrote, Anthony had been swayed by emotions which had mastered him, and he had written with fire and intensity, and, as she read, her heart responded tremulously:
"Dear Diana:
"Sophie has told me of your plan—your wonderful plan which has to do with my work and with me, and which shall link our futures in an interest which shall be above reproach.
"It was like you to think of it, and I shall not try to thank you. Indeed you will not want my thanks. You and I are beyond conventional concealments, and you know, as I know, that the thing which you are doing is for your own happiness as well as for mine, and I am glad that it is so, because your happiness is the thing which I most desire.
"I have not wanted to think of you up there in the hills. You belong to the sea, dear girl, and I know you are missing it, as we are missing you. I know, too, that, as you read this, you will say: 'He is overstepping bounds. He must not write these things to me.' But I am going to write them, Diana, for the time has come when we must face the big truths, and let the half-truths go.
"The big truth is this—that you and I love each other. The half-truth is—that Bettina loves me, and that I must not break her heart.
"I am troubled about Bettina. Certainly the child is not happy. All of her brightness has left her. She is pale and thin, and I am too wise a physician of bodies not to know something, too, of hearts. You may say that my attitude has affected her; that she had felt instinctively the difference in me. But it is not that. I am sure it is not that. When I asked her to-night if there was anything between us, she faltered that she had something to tell me that she would write.