I paused with my mouth half-opened to speak. "Holmes...?"
"Watson...?" he mimicked.
"You mean... you do not, you cannot mean..."
"I can and do, Watson. I thought you would have deduced that by now! in other respects your analytical powers have increased immensely. And I do not consider it sin."
I moved a little closer to him; not more than half a step. "Really?"
"Really. Since long before the Sholto case, I have been aware of feelings which friendship alone did not suffice to explain."
"And in all this time you have said nothing? You saw me be engaged, allowed me to marry and still said nothing?"
"I know you, Watson; and I knew that, whatever you yourself felt - and of that I was not entirely, although almost, certain - your sense of duty and of morality would prevent any further relationship. Unreasonable as it was, I preferred uncertainty to certain rejection. And I also feared that, if once you became aware of my feelings, our friendship would be over. I place high value on our friendship."
"But I do so as well! I would never willingly have broken our friendship. Even now, you are right: it cannot die - but neither can it become anything more, Holmes! I have treated Mary shamefully enough. To leave her would betray all I believe in."
"She has given you your freedom, Watson! Read the letter again! Here," and he thrust the letter at me, his slim finger pointing at the paragraph as he read it out to me, "I do desire my husband's happiness, or do not, at least, wish to see him made miserable by keeping to me against his wishes and inclinations. I would much prefer even divorce to such misery, on both our sides, as that would create. You need not hesitate on the count of her claim on you. And even had she not so generously granted it - and you would not throw such generosity, with all that it cost her, back into your wife's very face, Watson? - to continue as we have would be equally unfair and distasteful to her. She makes that quite plain."
His voice had risen in the middle of his speech, and his thin cheeks were flushed red with more emotion that I had ever seen him show. For myself, I felt pale as I paced the small room in great distress, trying to think. It was impossible. I could hear his soft, quick breathing, was aware of every tiny movement he made. The action I should take was clear: say goodbye and return to Mary. Ask her forgiveness and never see Holmes again. But every fibre of my being rebelled against that. I loved him.
Chapter 4