I must have fallen asleep, for I woke up with a start when I heard her voice. She was coming into the library with Hilary in her wake carrying the tea tray.

"Hello, darling," Diana said, hurrying forward. "Are you feeling a bit better today?"

I would never feel better. But I nodded; it was the easiest thing to do.

She bent over me, kissed me on my cheek, and then went and stood with her back to the fire, as she often did, just as Andrew had done. Saying nothing, she surveyed me for a few moments. As soon as Hilary had put the tea tray down and departed, she said, "What is it, Mal? You look as if you have something to tell me."

"I do," I replied. "David called me a short while ago. There's been a break in the case at last."

"Tell me all about it!" she exclaimed. She came and sat down next to me on the sofa.

Her eyes did not leave my face as I recounted my entire conversation with David.

When I finished, her reaction was the same as mine had been. "Thank God," she said quietly. "But it won't bring my son and my grandchildren back to life…" Her voice wavered slightly, and she took a moment to regain her composure, then she added, "But at least we know that justice will be done, and that those responsible will be punished."

"It's small comfort," I murmured. "But it's better than knowing they are free."

"And that they might kill again," Diana said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"I have to go to Paris on Wednesday," Diana said. "Why don't you come to London with me tomorrow? And then we'll go to Paris together. I think it would do you good, Mal."

Diana and I were sitting in the library on Sunday morning, reading the newspapers. Or rather, she was reading; I was merely glancing through them.

Looking up, I shook my head. "I don't think so. I'm still feeling a bit debilitated after the flu."

Diana stared at me for the longest moment, and then she said, "Nonsense, Mal, you're much better, and you have been for the last week. Your problem is your mental apathy."

Startled by her brisk, matter-of-fact tone as well as her words, I recoiled slightly, then said, "Maybe you're right."

"I know I am," she replied and put down her newspaper. Leaning forward, focusing every ounce of her attention on me, she continued, "Mal, you can't go on like this."

I returned her steady gaze, but I remained silent.

"What are you going to do? Sit on that sofa in this library for the rest of your life? Is that your plan?"

"I have no plans," I said.

"But you do have a choice. Actually, you have three choices. You can sit around forever, as you're doing now, letting your life drift away from you. You can kill yourself, which I know you've contemplated more than once, from the things you've said to me. Or you can pull yourself together, pick up the pieces and go on from here."

"Go where?" I muttered. "I just don't… don't know… what to do… what to do with myself," I began hesitantly, at a loss in more ways than one.

Diana sat studying me, her eyes full of love, her expression sympathetic, as it always was. Her voice was caring when she murmured softly, "I know only too well what you've lost-those you loved with all your heart, those most precious and dear to you. But as hard as it may seem, you must begin again. That is your only choice, Mal darling. Trust me, it is. God knows, you've nothing to lose, you've already lost it all, but you do have everything to gain."

"I do?"

"Yes. Your life, for one thing, a new life. You must try, darling, not only for yourself, but for me."

I sighed and looked away, and then I felt the tears rising to flood my eyes. "I can't," I whispered, fighting the tears, the pain, and the grief. "I'm weighted down. My sorrow is unendurable, Diana."

"I know, I know. I'm suffering too…" Diana could not finish her sentence. Her voice choked up, and she came and sat next to me on the sofa. Taking my hand in hers, she held on to it tightly and said finally, "Andrew wouldn't want to see you like this, Mal. He always said you were the strongest woman he'd ever known, other than me."

"I can't live without him. I don't want to live without him and the twins."

"You're going to have to," Diana said in a voice that was low, suddenly quite stern. "You've got to stop feeling sorry for yourself, right now. Do you think you're the only woman who has ever lost loved ones? Lost a family? What about me? I've lost my son, my only child, and my grandchildren, and before that I lost a husband when I was still a young woman. And what about your mother? She is as grief-stricken and heartbroken as we are."

Taking a deep breath, she added, "And what about the millions of other people in the world who have had to survive the loss of their families? You only have to think about the survivors of the Holocaust-those who lost husbands and wives and children and mothers and fathers in the death camps, to realize we are not alone. Loss of loved ones is part of life, I'm sorry to say. It's terrible, so difficult to accept-"

Diana could not continue speaking. Her emotions got the better of her, and she began to weep, but after only a moment or two she said through her tears, "There isn't a day goes by that I don't think about him, think about my Andrew, and about little Lissa and Jamie. And my heart never stops aching. But I know I can't give in, that I mustn't. And so I try to keep myself together, the best way I can. Mal, listen to me. You can't throw your life away. You have to try, just as I try."

The tears trickled down her cheeks, and she looked at me helplessly. I put my arms around her and held her close to me. And I wept with her.

Her words had found their mark, had touched the core of me, and I realized with a small shock how badly I had behaved; I had thought only of myself.

"I've been so selfish, Diana," I said at last. "Very selfish. You're right, I've only thought about my feelings, about my loss, my pain, not yours or Mom's."

"I didn't mean to sound harsh, darling," she murmured, extricating herself from me, sitting up on the sofa and drying her cheeks. "I was only trying to make you see… see things a little more clearly."

I didn't say anything for a few minutes, then glancing at Diana, I asked quietly, "What did you mean when you said I had everything to gain?"

"I told you, your life, primarily. But that also means your health, your well-being, your sanity. You're only thirty-three, Mal, still so very young, and I simply won't allow you to become a vegetable, a blob sitting around doing nothing except mourning and feeling sorry for yourself. It's vital that you mourn, yes. We must do that, we must get the grief out. But I can't, I won't permit you to throw your future away."

"Do I have a future, Diana?"

"Oh, yes, you do. Of course you do. That's another thing you have to gain. Your future. But you must reach out, grab life with both hands and start all over again. It will be the hardest thing you've ever had to do, the most painful, even, but it will be worth it, I promise you that."

"I don't know what to do. How would I begin again?" I asked, my mind starting to work in a more positive way for the first time since Andrew's death.

"First, I think you have to get yourself completely fit physically. You're far too thin, for one thing. You must start eating properly, and walking and exercising, so that you regain your strength, that vigor and energy of yours which I've always admired. And then you must think of the kind of job you'd like to find. You must work, not only because you need to earn money, but because you must keep yourself busy."

"I wouldn't know where to start." I bit my lip and shook my head. "I realize I have to begin to support myself, and very quickly. I can't let my mother and Dad go on helping me. But I don't have any idea what I could do. Or what I'm capable of doing, for that matter."