It was in February, 1915, that I began to expand my diary into this narrative,—­nearly two years ago.  We have passed through the darkness.  The Dawn is breaking.  Sursum corda.

I was going to tell you about Betty when Phyllis, with her furs and happiness and hymn-books, interrupted me.  I should like to tell you now.  But who am I to speak of the mysteries in the soul of a great woman?  But I must try.  And I can tell you more now than I could on Christmas Day.

Last night she insisted on seeing the New Year in with me.  If I had told Marigold that I proposed to sit up after midnight, he would have come in at ten o’clock, picked me up with finger and thumb as any Brobdingnagian might have picked up Gulliver, and put me straightway to bed.  But Betty made the announcement in her airily imperious way, and Marigold, craven before Betty and Mrs. Marigold, said “Very good, madam,” as if Dr. Cliffe and his orders had never existed.  At half past ten she packed off the happy and, I must confess, the somewhat sleepy Phyllis, and sat down, in her old attitude by the side of my chair, in front of the fire, and opened her dear heart to me.

I had guessed what her proud soul had suffered during the last six months.  One who loved her as I did could see it in her face, in her eyes, in the little hardening of her voice, in odd little betrayals of feverishness in her manner.  But the outside world saw nothing.  The steel in her nature carried her through.  She left no duty unaccomplished.  She gave her confidence to no human being.  I, to whom she might have come, was carried off to the sepulchre above mentioned.  Letters were forbidden.  But every day, for all her bleak despair, Betty sent me a box of fresh flowers.  They would not tell me it was Betty who sent them; but I knew.  My wonderful Betty.

When they took off my cerecloths and sent me back to Wellingsford, Betty was the first to smile her dear welcome.  We resumed our old relations.  But Betty, treating me as an invalid, forbore to speak of Leonard Boyce.  Any approach on my part came up against that iron wall of reserve of which I spoke to you long ago.

But last night she told me all.  What she said I cannot repeat.  But she had divined the essential secret of the double tragedy of the canal.  It had become obvious to her that he had made the final reparation for a wrong far deeper than she had imagined.  She was very clear-eyed and clear-souled.  During her long companionship with pain and sorrow and death, she had learned many things.  She had been purged by the fire of the war of all resentments, jealousies, harsh judgments, and came forth pure gold. ...  Leonard had been the great love of her life.  If you cannot see now why she married Willie Connor, gave him all that her generous heart could give, and after his death was irresistibly drawn back to Boyce, I have written these pages in vain.

A few minutes before midnight Marigold entered with a tray bearing a cake or two, a pint of champagne and a couple of glasses.  While he was preparing to uncork the bottle Betty slipped from the room and returned with another glass.