"We can't tell you what we don't know," the man in the station had said that morning. Words spoken mechanically and without thought, but containing the very essence of human tragedy. While there was yet time he had had no knowledge, not the slightest glimmering....
"Oh, Beatrice!" he groaned, "if I had only been able to hope! Just a little hope, even at that last minute on the platform! That would be something to be thankful for!"
And then in the anguish of his remorse all his fatigue and uncertainty suddenly fell from him. Nothing remained but the thought of her, strong, generous, brave, humble, all that he had professed to admire—dead! And he, false, mean, cowardly, cold-hearted, alive. And the idea of never being able to tell her that at last he understood became so intolerable, so cruel, so contrary to all that was good in life, so blindly unthinkable, that....
Well, in a word, it simply ceased to be. Such a life as had been hers could not fade into nothingness, such a heart as hers could not fail to understand, be she dead or alive.
"God," he whispered, clutching with all his strength at the hope the word now contained, "God, make her understand! I recant, I repent, I believe—anything! Forgive me if you can or punish me as you will, only let her live, let her know...."
Then, as the crowning torment, came hope. After all, he knew nothing; he only supposed. Nothing was certain; only probable. Something might have happened; he dared not think what or how, but it was possible, conceivable, at least, that Beatrice was not on that train when it was wrecked. Beatrice might still be alive!... The anguish of the fall back into probability was sharper than anything he had yet known, but every time he found himself struggling painfully up again toward that small spark of light.
He fell on his knees beside the bed—her bed—and tried to pray. Nothing came to his lips but the words he had so long disdained to say, uttered now with a fierce sweet jubilation:
"Beatrice, I love you. I never did before, but I do now—at least I think I do! I never knew, I never understood, but I do now! Beatrice, I do love you, I do, I do! Beatrice...."
But apparently they satisfied the power that has charge of such matters, for even as he stammered the words that saved him a blessed drowsiness stole over him and before long he slept as he knelt. It was morning when he awoke.