Patricia Wentworth - The Fire Within

She stopped for a moment. David was looking at her. Her words fell on his heart, word after word, like scalding tears. So she had loved him-it only needed that. Why did she tell him now when it was all too late-hideously too late?

Elizabeth went on.

“Do you remember, when we had been home a week, you dreamed your dream? Your old dream-you told me of it, one evening-but I knew already-”

“Knew?”

“No, don't speak. I can't go on if you speak. I knew because when you dreamed your dream you came to me.”

She bent lower over her hands. Her breathing quickened. She scarcely heard David's startled exclamation. She must say it-and it was so hard. Her heart beat so-it was so hard to steady her voice.

“You came into my room. It was late. The window was open, and the wind was blowing in. The moon was going down. I was standing by the window in my night-dress-and you spoke. You said, 'Turn round, and let me see your face.' Then I turned round and you came to me and touched me. You touched me and you spoke, and then you went away. And the next night you came again. You were in your dream, and in your dream you loved me. We talked. I said, 'Who am I?' and you said, 'You are the Woman of my Dream,' and you kissed me, and then you went away. But the third night-the third night-I woke up-in the dark-and you were there.”

After that first start, David sat rigid and watched her face. He saw her lips quiver-the patience of her face break into pain. He knew the effort with which she spoke.

“You came every night-for a fortnight. I used to think you would wake-but you never did. You went away before the dawn-always. You never waked-you never remembered. In your dream you loved me-you loved me very much. In the daytime you did n't love me at all. I got to feel I could n't bear it. I went away to Agneta, and there I thought it all out. I knew what I had to do. I think I had really known all along. But I was shirking. That 's why it hurt so much. If you shirk, you always get hurt.”

Elizabeth paused for a moment. She was looking at the blue of her ring. It shone. There was a little star in the heart of it.

“It 's very difficult to explain,” she said. “I suppose you would say I prayed. Do you remember asking me, if you had slept because I saw you in the Divine Consciousness? That 's the nearest I can get to explaining. I tried to see the whole thing-us-the Dream-in the Divine Consciousness, and you stopped dreaming. I knew you would. You never came any more. That 's all.”

Elizabeth stopped speaking. She moved as if to rise, but David's hand fell suddenly upon both of hers, and rested there with a hard, heavy pressure.

He said her name, “Elizabeth!” and then again, “Elizabeth!” His voice had a bewildered sound.

Elizabeth lifted her eyes and looked at him. His face was working, twitching, his eyes strained as if to see something beyond the line of vision. He looked past Elizabeth as he had done in his dream. All at once he spoke in a whisper.

“I remembered, it 's gone again-but I remembered.”

“The dream?”

“No, not the dream. I don't know-it 's gone. It was a name-your name-but it 's gone again.”

“My name?”

“Yes-it 's gone.”

“It does n't matter, David.”

Elizabeth had begun to tremble, and all at once he became aware of it.

“Why do you tremble?”

Elizabeth was at the end of her strength. She had done what she had to do. If he would let her go-

“David, let me go,” she said, only just above her breath.

Instead, he put out his other hand and touched her on the breast. It was like the Dream. But they were not in the Dream any more. They were awake.

David leaned slowly forward, and Elizabeth could not turn away her eyes. They looked at each other, and the thing that had happened before came upon them again. A momentary flash-memory-revelation-truth. The moment passed. This time it left behind it, not darkness, but light. They were in the light, because love is of the light.

David put his arms about Elizabeth

“Mine!” he said.

Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.

Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.