“ ...rooted in it. I was under the ground. That shows I loved you. Always, always. If I had not loved you, I should not have been so deep-buried under the ground. I was dead. That shows I loved you. I am all open in the air, high to you. That shows I love you. Love for you has never stopped, it has grown.”
“What do you mean ...?”
“There was a thing that helped me to push up from my despair, from my death under the ground where you had buried me, Harry. There was a man....”
Harry Luve stepped forward and viced her wrists: “A man—!”
“Harry dearest, you must let me now, me now tell you all about it.”
He stopped her. “One thing only.... This man—” His voice broke. He dropped her wrists. His face was an ashen mist. “For God’s sake, Fanny! You didn’t ... you didn’t, Fanny—“
His eyes saw her. Saw her face. Her face nodded.
His hands covered his face. He flinched away. He saw her not. He went back, back ... the wall caught him. He crumpled to the floor. He lay under his white hands. Lay long....
At last:
“Harry, Harry ... it was because I loved you. O the hurt! See, I have killed you too. Because I loved you.... I too needed to live, for you had killed me. Do not judge yet. Let me tell you, let me help us understand. I heard you ... your horrors, your orgies, your hells. O Harry, this was not so ... this was clean somehow ... leading to birth, to you. It was, since I am here now, loving you ... ready to give you all, all of a life I have at last won to give you. O my boy....”