But she knew. From a multitude of small things, and with an intuition almost divine, she read another chapter of the great surgeon's nobility, and turned her eyes again toward the rainbow east. It was perhaps what she saw there in the changing sunrise that impelled her to whisper softly:
"I hope you'll always be as brave as you were last night, Jeb."
His cheeks burned, but he faced her without flinching and replied:
"I'm never going to run away again, if that's what you mean!"
"I had not intended to put it so cruelly, Jeb. You've done a great thing to-night, because you conquered two enemies at the same time—the one within you being infinitely a harder fight than the one without. I appreciate that, and am glad for you."
"I want you to forget that—that disgrace at the shell hole," he said, doggedly.
"Forget?" Her voice broke hysterically, and her eyes filled with tears of pity. "Ask me to forgive it, Jeb, and I may—but, forget it? Oh, how can I? Don't you understand?—I saw it! I saw it!"
"Stop, stop—please!" he cried huskily, passing his hand across his face. "Then don't forget, if—if you can't; but I'd hate to think of the Colonel, and Aunt Sallie, and——"
"Your secret is safe, if that's what you fear," she said, now as composedly as she had a moment before been moved. Again, for half a minute, she faced the sunrise, when her voice came wistfully:
"Oh, God, if—if I just hadn't seen it!"