He cried, agonisingly: “Clare! Clare! Oh, for God’s sake, don’t stare at me like that, Clare! Oh, my darling, my dear darling, I’m sorry—sorry—I’m dead with sorrow! Clare—Clare—be kind to me. Clare—kinder than I have been to you or to Helen!…”
VIII
She said, quietly: “I must get back in time for my train.”
“No, no—not yet. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”
“I must.”
“No—no—”
“You know I must. Don’t you?”
He became calmer. It was as if she had willed him to become calmer, as if some of the calmness of her was passing over to him. “Clare,” he said, eagerly, “do you think I’m bad-am I—rotten-souled—because of what’s happened? Am I damned, do you think?”
She answered softly: “No. You’re not. And you mustn’t think you are. Don’t I love you? Would I love you if you were rotten? Would you love me if I was?”
He replied, gritting his teeth: “I would love you if you were filth itself.”
“Ah, would you?” she, answered, with wistful pathos in her voice. “But I’m not like that. I love you for what I know you are, for what I know you could be!”
“Could be? Could have been! But Clare, Clare—who’s to blame?”
“So many things happen dreadfully in this world and nobody knows who’s to blame.”
“But not this, Clare. We’re to blame.
“We can be to blame without being—all that you said.”
“Can we? Can we? There’s another thing. If Helen had—had lived—she would have had a baby in a few months’ time…”
He paused, waiting for her reply, but none came. She went very pale. At last she said, with strange unrestfulness: “What can I say? What is there to say?…Oh, don’t let us go mad through thinking of it! We have been wrong, but have we been as wrong as that? Hasn’t there been fate in it? Fate can do the awfullest things…My dear, dear man, we should go mad if we took all that load of guilt on ourselves! It is too heavy for repentance…Oh, you’re not bad, not inwardly. And neither am I. We’ve been instruments—puppets—”
“It’s good to think so. But is it true?”
“Before God, I think it is…Think of it all right from the beginning…Right from the night you met us both at Millstead…It’s easy to blame fate for what we’ve done, but isn’t it just as easy to blame ourselves for the workings of fate?”
She added, uneasily: “I must go back. My train. Don’t forget the time.”
“Can’t you wait for the next?”
“Dear, you know I mustn’t. How could I stay? Fate’s finished with us now. We’ve free-will…Didn’t I tell you we weren’t bad? All that’s why I can’t stay.”
They began to walk back to the railway-station. A mist-like rain was beginning to fall, and everything was swathed in grey dampness. They talked together like two age-long friends, partners in distress and suffering; he told her, carefully and undramatically, the story of the night before.
She said to him, from the carriage-window just before the 3:18 steamed out: “I shan’t see you again for ever such a long while. I wish—I wish I could stay with you and help you. But I can’t…You know why I can’t, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know why. We must be brave Alone: We must learn, if we can, to call ourselves good again.”
“Yes…Yes…We must start life anew. No more mistakes. And you must grow back again to what you used to be…The next few months will be terrible—maddening—for both of us. But I can bear them. Do you think you can—without me? If I thought you couldn’t”—her voice took on a sudden wild passion—“if I thought you would break down under the strain, if I thought the fight would crush and kill you, I would stay with you from this moment and never, never leave you alone! I would-I would—if I thought there was no other way!”
He said, calmly and earnestly: “I can fight it, Clare. I shall not break down. Trust me. And then—some day—”
She interrupted him hurriedly. “I am going abroad very soon. I don’t know for how long, but for a long while, certainly. And while I am away I shall not write to you, and you must not write to me, either. Then, when I come back…”
He looked up into her eyes and smiled. The guard was blowing his whistle.
“Be brave these next few months,” she said again.
“I will,” he answered. He added: “I shall go home.”
“What? Home. Home to the millionaire soap-boiler?” (A touch of the old half-mocking Clare.)
“Yes. It’s my home. They’ve always been very good to me.”
“Of course they have. I’m glad you’ve realised it.” Then the train began to move. “Good-bye!” she said, holding out her hand.
“Good-bye!” he cried, taking it and clasping it quickly as he walked along the platform with the train. “See you again,” he added, almost in a whisper.
She gave him such a smile, with tears streaming down her cheeks, as he would never, never forget.
When he went out again into the station-yard the fine rain vas falling mercilessly. He felt miserable, sick with A new as well as an old misery, but stirred by a hope that would never let him go.
Back then to the Beach Hotel, vowing and determining for the future, facing in anticipation the ordeals of the dark days ahead, summoning up courage and fortitude, bracing himself for terror and conflict and desire…And with it all hoping, hoping…hoping everlastingly.
THE END
* * *
GALLERY OF COVER IMAGES
Cover of Penguin Edition, 1939.
Cover of Avon Edition, 1944.
Cover of French Edition, Concorde, Paris, 1946.
Cover of Italian Edition, Rome, 1946.
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James Hilton, The Passionate Year
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