He yearned for his mother's love but when she died he only felt relief, "I knew she had eaten my father, and I was glad I did not have to fight any longer to keep her from eating me."" (Davies 78) He finds this motherly love in Diana Marfleet, a nurse, while he was hospitalized in England. Diana, referred to as the "pretty nurse- tended Dunstan through his six months period of convalescence, after his near death experience on the fields of Passchendaele. He finds her very appealing for she was the opposite of his mother. She was what his mother should have been and was not. In her loving, caring way she attends to all his physical needs. Dunstan was reborn and this time it was Diana who attends to all of his biological needs. During this time both develop a liking for each other and become lovers. An important step toward the completion of Dunstan's manhood into maturity. Through Diana, Dunstan learned what physical love meant but when the question of marriage came up, his maturity made him shun the motherly quality of her affection. "I could not be blind to the fact that she regarded me as her own creation what was wrong between Diana and me was that she was too much a mother to me.""(Davies 85) He realizes that he can not have anyone telling him what to do, like his mother did, ever "he wants to be his own person, "I know how clear it is .I had no intention of being anyone's dear laddie, ever again.""(Davies 85) Before they part, Diana renames him Dunstan giving up his mother's maiden name and taking the name of a saint.
The requirements of spiritual needs are met by Mary Dempster in the development of Dunstan. It is from Mary Dempster that Dunstan learns most of what he knows about the mythic world. He recognizes her as a "wholly religious- (Davies 47) person with no constraints. She is not affected by other people's opinion of her "she knew she was in disgrace with the world, but did not feel disgraced.