It seemed she listened breathlessly for the beating
of my heart, and hearing none, resolved that she would pour her own life
into it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might make
it live. She undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, in
some mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined by
me, yet passionately honoured, was to give--regardless of herself or of
response. I caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who would
instinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. She loved me
marvellously. I know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotion
she bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled period
before the end. It made me aware of new depths and heights in human
nature. It taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had left
unmentioned. Into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse was
given me. My own dreadful weakness was laid bare. And an eternal hunger
woke in me--that I might love. That hunger remained unsatisfied. I prayed, I yearned, I suffered; I
could have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed I
stretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope that
the Gift of the Gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divine
emotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. But all in vain. My attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no more
than a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of a
mere positive emotion, least of all, of love. The heart in me lay
unredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did not
beat for her. I could not love. I have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marion
and her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping. I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not
despise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. The
legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me
grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a
man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction
from his potentialities. And yet it is true, in our own case, that you
have exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are given
chiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male--the
animal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic and
pedestrian temperament. Fairly clean-minded, I hope I may be, but beyond
all question I am the male animal incarnate. It was, indeed, the
thousand slaveries of the senses, individually so negligible,
collectively so overwhelming, that forced me upon my knees before her
physical loveliness. I must tell you now that this potent spell,
alternating between fiery desire and the sincerest of repugnance,
continued to operate. I complete the confession by adding briefly, that
after marriage she resented and repelled all my advances. A deep sadness
came upon her; she wept; and I desisted. It was my soul that she desired
with the fire of her mighty love, and not my body.... And again, since
it is to myself and to you alone I tell it, I would add this vital fact:
it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned"
that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animal
will, yet willingly. I have told you that, when dying, she revealed to me a portion of her
"secret." This portion of a sacred confidence lies so safe within my
everlasting pity that I may share it with you without the remorse of a
betrayal. Full understanding we need never ask; the solution, I am
convinced, is scarcely obtainable in this world. The message, however,
was incomplete because the breath that framed it into broken words
failed suddenly; the heart, so strangely given into my unworthy keeping,
stopped beating as you shall hear upon the very edge of full disclosure. The ambushed meaning I have hinted at remained--a hint. III

THERE was, then, you will remember, but an interval of minutes between
the accident and the temporary recovery of consciousness, between
that recovery again and the moment when the head fell forward on my
knee and she was gone. That "recovery" of consciousness I feel bound
to question, as you shall shortly hear. Among such curious things I
am at sea admittedly, yet I must doubt for ever that the eyes which
peered so strangely into mine were those of Marion herself--as I had
always known her. You will, at any rate, allow the confession, and
believe it true, that I--did not recognize her quite. Consciousness
there was, indubitably, but whether it was "recovery" of
consciousness is another matter, and a problem that I must for ever
question though I cannot ever set it confidently at rest. It almost
seemed as though a larger, grander, yet somehow a less personal, soul
looked forth through the fading eyes and used the troubled breath. In those brief minutes, at any rate, the mind was clear as day, the
faculties not only unobscured, but marvellously enhanced. In the eyes
at first shone unveiled fire; she smiled, gazing into my own with
love and eager yearning too. There was a radiance in her face I must
call glory. Her head was in my lap upon the bed of rugs we had
improvised inside the field: the broken motor posed in a monstrous
heap ten yards away; and the doctor, summoned by a passing stranger,
was in the act of administrating the anaesthetic, so that we might
bear her without pain to the nearest hospital--when, suddenly, she
held up a warning finger, beckoning to me that I should listen
closely. I bent my head to catch the words. There was such authority in the
gesture, and in the eyes an expression so extraordinarily appealing,
and yet so touched with the awe of a final privacy beyond language,
that the doctor stepped backwards on the instant, the needle shaking
in his hand--while I bent down to catch the whispered words that at
once began to pass her lips. The wind in the poplar overhead mingled with the little sentences, as
though the breath of the clear blue sky, calmly shining, was mingled
with her own. But the words I heard both troubled and amazed me:

"Help me! For I am in the dark still!" went through me like a sword. "And I do not know how long." I took her face in both my hands; I kissed her. "You are with
friends," I said. "You are safe with us, with me--Marion!" And I
apparently tried to put into my smile the tenderness that clumsy
words forswore. Her next words shocked me inexpressibly:  "You
laugh," she said, "but I----" she sighed--"I weep." I stroked her face and hair. No words came to me. "You call me Marion," she went on in an eager tone that surely belied
her pain and weakness, "but I do not remember that. I have forgotten
names." Then, as I kissed her, I heard her add in the clearest
whisper possible, as though no cloud lay upon her mind: "Yet Marion
will do--if by that you know me now."