"Come to me at once. I am dying. You must come.--IDA.--Apinshaw
Farm, Mellor, Derbyshire."
There was a train at twelve to Marple, the nearest station. I took it. I
tell you there are some things that cannot be written about. My life for
those long months was one of them, that journey was another. What had
her life been for those months? That question troubled me, as one is
troubled in every nerve at the sight of a surgical operation or a wound
inflicted on a being dear to one. But the overmastering sensation was
joy--intense, unspeakable joy. She was alive! I should see her again. I
took out the telegram and looked at it: "I am dying." I simply did not
believe it. She could not die till she had seen me. And if she had lived
all those months without me, she could live now, when I was with her
again, when she knew of the hell I had endured apart from her, and the
heaven of our meeting. She must live. I would not let her die.
There was a long drive over bleak hills. Dark, jolting, infinitely
wearisome. At last we stopped before a long, low building, where one or
two lights gleamed faintly. I sprang out.
The door opened. A blaze of light made me blink and draw back. A woman
was standing in the doorway.
"Art thee Arthur Marsh?" she said.
"Yes."
"Then, th'art ower late. She's dead."