I went over to the drawer and took out my Diary. All lies! Some day I must burn it. But not yet. It was like a living thing to me. The little blue book fell open and certain words leaped out at me: "Diary, I have found him.... I've the heart and brain and beautiful spirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in my consciousness. Richard Warren! Richard Warren!..." I closed the book and laid it back with the letters. A great sheaf of thin, typewritten pages ... all lies.... Uncle John had been in the plot then: and Wright Penny. It was very clear to me now. I took from my neck the jade lucky-charm which "Richard Warren" had sent me and flung it out of the window. Wiggles, prowling beneath, barked happily and set out to retrieve it. Even Wiggles was not mine! Nothing I had had was mine! I laid my head on the desk and cried bitterly. It's hard to see the dreams go: to watch the castle you have builded on the shifting sands crumble and fall. These things had meant so much to me, ill and prisoned, and had continued to make a little, inner life for me, after the physical prison doors had opened. If only by a miracle I could have been back in Green Hill, in my rose-grey room, never to walk again, and with Richard Warren's letters coming to me, out of the Unknown. Then I remembered ... there was no Richard Warren. CHAPTER XIII After a long time, I heard a knock at my door. "May I speak with you, Mavis, just for a moment?" said my husband. I steadied my voice with an effort. "I can't imagine that you have anything of interest to tell me," I answered, "Isn't it time you went to Havana to meet Mr. Penny?" There was an exclamation, and suddenly the door was flung open and Bill came in. "Look here," he said, "we've got to have this thing out once and for all." I was standing, my wet handkerchief in a tight, hard wad in my hand. "Please leave my room," I said coldly. "Not till I've said what I want to. I'm sorry you found out--about the book. I was going to tell you--later. But now that you have, we can't ignore it. It was the merest coincidence that I met you before your first letter came. And I was deep in it, before I realized that you were bound to dislike me, as I really am,--and then I couldn't tell you. Things you said in your letters made it absolutely impossible for me. And for reasons of my own, I had preserved my incognito very carefully. Only Uncle John knew, and Wright and my Mother--and--your Father--" Father! And his mother! The little "red-haired, blue-eyed" lady who had written to me: to whom I had confided my admiration for her son! Minute by minute, shame was flooding me: shame and a terribly tired feeling. "Does your mother know--?" I asked. "That we are married? No," he answered, "I had reasons for not telling her just yet. She knows I am in Cuba, of course. You have never asked me about my people so I hardly thought it worth while to mention her to you--under the circumstances."