Part 34 (1/2)

”Be sure I shall not. Sit down.”

But she stood still, with an arm extended to the picture, and again implored me: ”See--I'm waiting. Where--how--did you get it?”

”Sit down,” I said; and this time she obeyed with a little cry of impatience.

”I'll try to bring it back,” I said. ”It was that day Sheridan hurried back to find his army broken--all but beaten. Just at dark there was a last charge--a charge that was met. I went down in it, hearing yells and a spitting fire, but feeling only numbness. When I woke up the firing was far off. Near me I could hear a voice, the voice of a young man, I thought, wounded like myself. I first took him for one of our men. But his talk undeceived me. It was the talk of your men, and sorrowful talk.

He was badly hurt; he knew that. But he was sure of life. He couldn't die there like a brute. He had to go back and he would go back alive and well; for G.o.d was a gentleman, whatever else He was, and above practical jokes of that sort. Then he seemed to know he was losing strength, and he cried out for a picture, as if he must at least have that before he went. Weak as he was, he tried to turn on his side to search for it. 'It was here a moment ago,' he would say; 'I had it once,' and he tried to turn again, still crying out for it,--he must not die without it. It hurt me to hear his voice break, and I made out to roll near him to help him search. 'We'll find it,' I told him, and he thanked me for my help.

'Look for a square hard case,' he said eagerly. 'It must be here; I had it after I fell down.' Together we searched the rough ground over in the dark as well as we could. I was glad enough to help him. I had a picture like that of my own that I shouldn't have liked to lose. But we were clumsy searchers, and he seemed to lose hope as he lost strength. Again he cried out for that picture, but now it was a despairing cry, and it hurt me. Under the darkness I reached my one good hand up and took my own picture from its place. So many of us carried pictures over our hearts in those days. I pretended then to search once more, telling him to have courage, and then I said, 'Is this it?' He fumbled for it, and his hand caught it quickly up under his chin. He was so glad. He thanked me for finding it, and then he lay still, panting. After a while--we both wanted water--I crawled away to where I heard a running stream. It must have been farther than I thought, and I couldn't be quick because so much of me was numb and had to be dragged. But I reached the water and filled a canteen I had found on the way. As soon as I could manage it I went back to him with the water, but I must have been gone a long time. He wasn't there. But as I crawled near where he had lain, I put my hand on a little square case such as I had given him. I thought it must be mine. I lost consciousness again. When I awoke two hospital stewards carried me on a stretcher, and a field surgeon walked beside us. I still had the picture, and not for many days did I know that it wasn't my own.

After that I forgot it--but I've already told you of that.”

Her eyes had not quitted my face while I spoke, though they were glistening; her mouth had weakened more than once, and a piteous little ”Oh!” would come from her lips. When I had finished she looked away from me, dropping her eyes to the floor, leaning forward intently, her hands shut between her knees. For a long time she remained so, forgetting me.

But at last I could hear her breathe and could see the increasing rise and fall of it, so that I feared a crisis. But none came. Again she mastered herself and even managed a smile for me, though it was a poor thing.

”I've told you all, Miss Kate.”

”Yes--I'm unfair, but you have a right to know. I found that picture--your picture, when they brought him in. His hands were clenched about it. They said he had pleaded to hold it and made them promise not to take it from him--ever. I was left alone, and I dared to take it, just for a moment. Something in the design of the cover puzzled me. I had meant to put it right back, and after I had looked at it there was only one thing to do--to put it back.”

”They said you found your own picture, or I might have suspected.”

”They had reason to say it--I never told.”

”Of course you never told, Miss Kate!” I seemed to learn a great deal of her from that. She had carried her wound secretly through all those years.

”Poor Little Miss!” I said in spite of myself, and at this quite unexpectedly there befell what I had hoped we might both be spared.

I might not soothe her as I would have wished, so I busied myself in the next room until she called to me. She was putting what touches she could to her eyes with a small and sadly bedraggled handkerchief.

”There is a better reason for telling no one now,” she said, ”so we must destroy this. Mother might see it.”

My grate contained its summer acc.u.mulation of waste paper. She laid the picture on this and I lighted the pyre.

”Your mother will see your eyes,” I said.

”She has seen them so before.” And she gave me her hand, which I kissed.

”Poor Little Miss!” I said, still holding it.

”Not poor now--you have given me back so much. I can believe again--I can believe almost as much as Jim.”

But I released her hand. Though her eyes had not quitted mine, their look was one of utter friendliness.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW A TRUCE WAS TROUBLESOME

In the days and nights that followed this interview I a.s.sociated rather more than usual with Jim. It seemed well to do so. I needed to learn once more some of the magnificent belief that I had taught him in days when my own was stronger. Close companions.h.i.+p with a dog of the truly Greek spirit, under circ.u.mstances in which I now found myself, was bound to be of a tonic value. I had seen, almost at the moment of Miss Kate's disclosure, that a change was to come in our relations. Perhaps I was wild enough at the moment to hope that it might be a change for the better; but this was only in the first flush of it--of a moment ill adapted for close reasoning. It took no great while to convince me that the discovery in which we had cooperated was of a character necessarily to put me from her even farther than she had at first chosen to put me--and that was far enough, Heaven knows.