were banded to keep hisself-respect for him, to cover over his cowardice with some distortedtheory of courage. Perhaps they did not know, but he knew, about thatlast thought of determined egotism, that shout of "I won't! I won't!"before the car caught him. He knew, and never as long as he livedcould he look the world in the eyes again, with that shame in his soul.What would _she_ have thought, had she been there to see? She wouldnot have been deceived; her clear eyes would have seen the truth.
So he felt; so he went over and over the five minutes of the accidenttill all covering seemed to be stripped from his strained nerves.
"You'd better dress now and go down in the garden and sit there,"suggested Dick the next morning. "Take a book, and wait for me there.The place will be empty in twenty minutes. I'll be along before lunch."
The garden rioted with color. The listless black figure strayedthrough the sunshine down a walk between a mass of scarlet Orientalpoppies on one side and a border of swaying white lilies on the other.
Ranks of tall larkspur lifted blue spires beyond. The air was heavywith sweet smells, mignonette and alyssum and the fragrance of athousand of roses, white and pink and red, over by the hedge. Thehedge ran on four sides of the garden, giving a comforting sense ofprivacy. In spite of the suffering he had gone through, the raw nervesof the man felt a healing pressure settling over them, resting on them,out of the scented stillness. There were no voices from the house;bees were humming somewhere near the rose-bushes; the first cricket ofsummer sang his sudden, drowsy song and was as suddenly quiet.
The black figure strayed on, down the long walk between the flowers, toa rustic summer-house, deep in vines, at the end of the path. Therewere seats there, and a table. He sat down in the coolness and staredout at the bright garden. He tried manfully to pull himself together;he reminded himself that he could still work, could still serve theworld, and that, after all, was what he was in the world for. Therewas a reason for living, then; there was hope, he reasoned. And then,the hopelessness, the helplessness of under-vitality, which is oftenthe real name for despair, had caught him again. His arms were thrownout on the rough table and his head lay on them.
There was a sound in the vine-darkened little summer-house. McBirneylifted his head sharply; a girl stood there, a slim figure in blackclothes. McBirney sprang to his feet astonished, angry. Then the girlput out her hand and held to the upright of the opening as if to holdherself steady, and began talking in a hurried tone, as if she werereciting.
"I had to come to tell you that you were not a coward, but a hero, andthat you saved Toddy Winthrop's life, and it's so, and Dick Marstonsays you don't know it and won't let him tell you and I've got to haveyou know it, and it's so and you have to believe it, for it's so." Thegirl was gasping, clutching the side of the summer-house with her faceturned away, frightened yet determined.
"Who are you?" demanded McBirney, sternly, staring at her. There wassomething surging up inside of him, unknown, unreasonable; heart'sblood was rushing about his system inconveniently; his pulse washammering--why? He knew why; this sudden vision of a girl remindedhim--took him back--he cut through that idea swiftly; he was ill,unbalanced, obsessed with one memory, but he would not allow himself togo mad.
"Who are you?" he repeated sternly. And the girl turned and faced himand looked up into his grim, tortured face, half shy, half laughing,all glad.
She spoke softly. "Hope," she said. "You needed me"--she said, "and Icame."
With that, with the unreasonable certainty that happens at times inaffairs which go beyond reason, he was certain. Yet he did not dare tobe certain.
"Who are you?" he threw at her for the third time, and his eyes flameddown into the changing face, the face which he had never known, whichhe seemed to have known since time began. The laughter left it thenand she gazed at him with a look which he had not seen in a woman'seyes before. "I think you know," she said. "Toddy Winthrop isn't theonly one. You saved me--Oh, you've saved me too." Every inflection ofthe voice brought certainty to him; the buoyant, soft voice which heremembered. "I am Hope Stuart," she said. "I am August First."
"Ah!" He caught her hands, but she drew them away. "Not yet," shesaid, and the promise in the denial thrilled him. "You've got toknow--things."
"Don't think, don't dream that I'll let you go, if you still care," hethrew at her hotly. And with that the thought of two days beforestabbed into him. "Ah!" he cried, and stood before his happinessmiserably.
"What?" asked the girl.
"I'm not fit to speak to you. I'm disgraced; I'm a coward; you don'tknow, but I let--that child be killed as much as if he had not beensaved by a miracle. It wasn't my fault he was saved. I didn't mean tosave him. I meant to save myself," he went on with savage accusation.
"Tell me," commanded the girl, and he told her.
"It's what I thought," she answered him then. "I told the doctor whatDick said, this morning. The doctor said it was the commonest thing inthe world, after a blow on the head, to forget the last minutes before.You'll never remember them. You did save him. Your past--yourcharacter decided for you"--here was his own bitter thought turned toheavenly sweetness!--"You did the brave thing whether you would or not.You've got to take my word--all of our words--that you were a hero.Just that. You jumped straight down and threw Toddy into the bushesand then fell, and the chauffeur couldn't turn fast enough and he hityou--and your head was hurt."
She spoke, and looked into his eyes.
"Is that the truth?" he shot at her. It was vital to know where hestood, whether with decent men or with cowards.
"So help me God," the girl said quietly.
As when a gate is opened into a lock the water begins to pour in with asteady rush and covers the slimy walls and ugly fissures, so peacepoured into the discolored emptiness of his mind. Suddenly the gatewas shut again. What difference did anything make--anything?
"You are married," he stated miserably, and stood before her. Themoments had rushed upon his strained consciousness so overladen, thejoy of seeing her had been so intense, that there had been no place foranother thought. He had forgotten. The thought which meant thefailure of happiness had been crowded out. "You are married," herepeated, and the old grayness shadowed again a universe without hope.
And then the girl whose name was Hope smiled up at him through arainbow, for there were tears in her eyes. "No," she answered, "no."And with that he caught her in his arms: her smile, her slim shoulders,her head, they were all there, close, crushed against him. The beeshummed over the roses in the sunshiny garden; the locust sang hisstaccato song and stopped suddenly; petals of a rose floated againstthe black dress; but the two figures did not appear to breathe. Timeand space, as the girl had said once, were fused. Then she stirred,pushed away his arms, and stood erect and looked at him with a flushed,radiant face.
"Do you think I'd let you--marry--a cripple, a lump of stone?" shedemanded, and something in the buoyant tone made him laugh unreasonably.
"I think--you've got to," he answered, his head swimming a bit.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," and she shook her finger at himtriumphantly. "I'm--going--to--get--well."
"I knew it all along," the man said, smiling.
"That's a lie!" she announced, so prettily, in the soft, buoyant voice,that he laughed with sheer pleasure. "You never knew. Do you knowwhere I've been?"
"In Germany."
"I haven't been in Germany a minute." The bright face grew grave andagain the quick, rainbow tears flashed. "You never heard," she said."Uncle Ted died, the day before we were to sail." She stopped amoment. "It left me alone and--and pretty desperate. I--I almosttelegraphed you."
"_Why_ didn't you?" he groaned.
"Because--what I said. I wouldn't sacrifice you." She paid noattention to the look in his eyes. "Robin was going to my place inGeorgia--I told you I had a place? My father's old shooting-box. I'darranged for him to do that. With some people who needed it. So--Iwent t
oo. I took two trained nurses and some old souls--old sickpeople. Yes, I did. Wasn't it queer of me? I'm always sorrier forold people than for children. They realize, the old people. So Iscraped up a few astonished old parties, and they groaned and wheezedand found fault, but had a wonderful winter. The first time I was everany good to anybody in my life. I thought I might as well do one jobbefore I petrified. And all winter Robin was talking about thatbone-ologist from France who had been in Forest Gate, and whom