Algernon Blackwood

“ Marion was dead, her deep secret undisclosed. That which she yearned to tell me was something which, in her brief period of devotion, she had lived, had faithfully acted out, yet herself only dimly aware of why it had to be. The solution of this problem of unrequited love lay at last within her grasp; of a love that only asked to give of its unquenched and unquenchable store, undismayed by the total absence of response. ”

“ Then, of a sudden, I became aware that the weight of the head and shoulders had dreadfully increased. I dared not turn my face lest I should look upon her whom I had deeply wronged--the forsaken tenement of this woman whose matchless love now begged with her dying breath for my forgiveness! ”

“ A cowardly desire to lose consciousness ran through me, to forget myself, to hide my shame with her in death; yet, even while this was so, I sought most desperately through the depths of my anguished pity to find some hint, if only the tiniest seed, of love--and found it not. . . . The rest belonged to things unrealized. . . .
I remember a hand being laid upon me. I lifted my head which had fallen close against her cheek. The doctor stood beside me, his grave and kindly face bent low. ”