would take me.
She
had just changed her frock for dinner, I remember,
when I burst into the room. I can see her
face--startled--beautiful--afraid.
I
said, "No one but me shall ever have you. No one."
And
I caught her throat in my hands and gripped
it and bent her backwards.
IN A GLASS DARKLY
189
And stddenly I saw our reflection in the mirror.
Sylvia choking amd myself strangling her, and the
scar on rny cheek: where the bullet grazed it under
the right ear.
No--I didn't kill her. That sudden revelation
paralyzed me and I loosened my grasp and let her
slip onto the floo ....
And then I broke down--and she comforted
me .... Yes, she comforted me.
I told her everything and she told me that by the
phrase "the one person who loved and needed
her" she had meant her brother Alan .... We saw
into eacla other's hearts that night, and I don't
think, from that moment, that we ever drifted
away from each other again ....
It's a sobering thought to go through life with
--that, but for the grace of God and a mirror, one
might be a murderer ....