"Then let's talk. We're nearing London. We sha'n't get much chance for being alone after we arrive. We don't know what we'll find. We may be whisked away in opposite directions. Before we're separated, I want to acknowledge what I owe you."
"It's cold," she shuddered, drawing closer to him. And then, "You owe me nothing."
He was tempted to place his arm about her, but the cowardice of past failure was strong upon him. He was afraid lest the ordinary gestures of affection would cheapen him in her eyes; he was still more afraid that they might mean to her that he valued
her too lightly. He held himself in hand, staring straight before him and speaking quietly.
"I'm the only judge of what I owe you. I came to you broken. Life had made a fool of me. I'd fallen through placing my ideals too high. Everything was slipping. Every belief I'd ever had was open to doubt. Most of all I'd lost faith in the goodness of women. To explain my state of mind I have to tell you that the war had made me fanatical. Like millions of men who went out to die, I'd persuaded myself that I was fighting more than Germans—I was fighting to bring about the new heaven and the new earth. Our politicians promised us as much. You remember their phrases. 'A world safe for democracy! A land fit for heroes to live in.' When all the muck and the heartbreak were ended, we found that outwardly it was the same old world. Heaven was as far away as ever. There were no signs that any one wanted a new earth. Nations which had been comrades, began to wrangle. Soldiers came home to find their jobs held by slackers. The glorious promises had been a death-bed repentance; their insincerity was proved when the world recovered. But our worst disappointment was utterly personal—that despite the magnanimity we had shared and witnessed, we ourselves were no less selfish. For me all these disillusions were epitomized in Terry. I'd fought for her. I'd carried her in my heart. If I'd died, my last thoughts would have been of her. I came back hungry and she disowned me. That she should have done that made humanity a Judas and God a
mocker. I don't mean you to believe that I gave way at once to this wholesale injustice. At first I made an effort to struggle against it. I'd always held that great living was a matter of pressing forward, of wearing an air of triumph when you knew you were defeated, of believing, in spite of every proof to the contrary, that further up the road your kingdom waited for you."
He felt the pressure of her friendly hand. "It does," she assured him. "That's what you've taught me. It's what you taught Maisie; it's almost as though you'd willed her husband to come back. You're a great believer. All great believers have been doubters. They give away so much of their faith that at times they have none left for themselves. You limp. Don't flinch; with me there's no need to be sensitive. When you entered my room for the first time, you made me think of another lame man. Do you remember how Jacob wrestled all night with an unknown assailant? When dawn was breaking his thigh was out of joint, but he refused to let his assailant go until he had asked his name. The stranger would not tell him—instead he blessed him. And then Jacob knew it was with God he had wrestled. When the sun rose and he went upon his way, he halted upon his thigh. You have the look that I think he must have had—the look of a man who has been maimed in trying to make God answer questions. It's that look and your very lameness that have given me back something that Lord Dawn took from me—something that he knew, when he
sent you, you could give me back: my faith in men, without which a woman can have no happiness."
The ghostly world streamed by, silent-footed and mist-muffled. It was the hour when children are born and weary people die—the hour of new beginnings and ancient endings, when life and death, like soldiers changing guard, salute at the cross-roads of the new day as friends.
At last he broke the silence. "I thought I had nothing to give you. I felt so empty. You seemed so strong and immovable, like a still tree in a forest that was storm-shaken. You made me feel that however the wind raged, beneath your branches there would be always rest. I never knew——" He paused as though he had forgotten what he had set out to say. "I never guessed that a woman could be so good."