He hadn't killed
her; he would correct Fancett there. The doctor's glance, almost
suspicious, had been intolerable. Savina had whispered to him, at the
end, that she was sorry for nothing; she had begged him to be happy.
He roused himself and asked Daniel if they had far to go, and learned
that they had almost reached the batey. Where, Lee added silently,
Daniel wouldn't have us. It might well have saved Savina. The same
ideas persisted in his mind. He wondered if, in the hurried packing,
her handkerchief had been neglected? It was one of a number that Savina
had bought in Havana. He had stayed outside, in the motor, smoking;
and, when she had rejoined him, after a long wait, she had displayed
her purchases. Her voice had been animated with pleasure at their
reasonable price. Things small and unimportant! His brain worked
mechanically, like a circling toy that had been tightly wound up and
must continue until its spring was expanded.
The fundamental calamity was too close for any grasp of its tragic
proportions: Savina dead was far more a set of unpredictable
consequences than a personality. Alive she had drawn him into herself;
she had, with her body, shut out the world of reality if not of mental
query. Even the fervor of Cuba had seemed to pale before her burning
spirit. What, without knowing it, Dr. Fancett had meant--a thing Lee
himself had foreseen--was that Savina had killed herself, she had been
consumed by her own flame.
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