But his face was set steadfastly toward the heart of the stricken city, and he neither answered nor looked back.
The future sister of St. Margaret’s watched him with a heart that ached as she had thought it could never ache again. All the hard-won peace of her patient years, which she thought so secure a possession, had gone at once and was as though it had not been; for he, with all his weaknesses upon him, was still the man she loved.
“Lord, give him back to me!” she cried, yet felt the cry was futile.
Slowly she climbed the stairs again, wondering where was the courage and quiet confidence that had sustained her so short a time ago.
Was it true, then, that heaven was only excellent when earth could not be had? She was the coward now. In her mind there were but two thoughts—the desire to see him again, and a new, appalling fear of death.
She re-entered the sick-room where the girl was watching her patients with awed eyes.
“You need not stay here,” she said, softly. “I cannot sleep now. I will call you when I can.”
“THE HONOR OF A GENTLEMAN”
I
Because there was so little else left him to be proud of, he clung the more tenaciously to his pride in his gentle blood and the spotless fame of his forefathers. There was no longer wealth nor state nor position to give splendor to the name, but this was the less sad in that he himself was the sole survivor of that distinguished line. He was glad that he had no sisters—a girl should not be brought up in sordid, ignoble surroundings, such as he had sometimes had to know; as for brothers, if there had been two of them to make the fight against the world shoulder to shoulder, life might have seemed a cheerier thing; but thus far he had gotten on alone. And the world was not such an unkindly place, after all. Though he was a thousand miles away from the old home, in this busy Northwestern city where he and his were unknown, he was not without friends; he knew a few nice people. He had money enough to finish his legal studies; if there had not been enough, he supposed he could have earned it somehow; he was young and brave enough to believe that he could do anything his self-respect demanded of him. If it sometimes asked what might seem to a practical world fantastic sacrifices at his hands, was he not ready to give them? At least, had he not always been ready before he met Virginia Fenley?