He realized with full conviction that an impassable gulf lay between him and this girl. It was not his debasing weakness, so much as her discovery of it, that would forever stamp him with the brand of shame. The Arab sheik who one time said: "A thief may loot my tent and I will curse all thieves, but do I catch him at it and he dies!"—expressed the mind of all humanity. Marian had seen Jeb; and this meant that he was dead to her.
He watched her for a moment longer, then in a dispirited voice asked:
"Shall I tell Bonsecours it's all right for me to go?"
Without taking her face from the east, she answered evenly:
"Yes; tell him it's all right for you to go. I am praying God to watch over you, and—and make you truly worthy of a place among our soldiers from home."
He glanced back, and saw, far beyond the quadrangle, two stretcher-bearers carrying Tim to the waiting ambulance. Once more he looked at Marian, tried twice to speak, but stood humbly mute before her—awed by her ennobling beauty. For again her exquisite hands were crossed over the red emblem upon her breast, her eyes gazed into the glorified sky, and her lips moved as she pleaded with the God of Hosts to fire this playmate at her side with the divine spark of courage—and keep him brave.
Jeb bowed his head, feeling as though he were within the precinct of a holy shrine; then in silence turned and went down the road, walking with firm steps which, he prayed, would lead to the dawn of a new manhood.
The first of the "75's" crashed spitefully, and in a chaotic instant the air and earth again were shorn of their blessed peace. Instantly the sky became streaked with trails of smoke from over-passing shells. Far to the north they fell and burst into white spray, as though a long Atlantic comber were pounding on a rocky shore.
She turned once and looked toward it, moved by infinite pity for the men who were being shattered; then started slowly back into the quadrangle, just as Bonsecours dashed wildly up in search of her.
There were no words that he could say; he merely stood in front of her, holding out his arms. Her fingers, still laced over the Red Cross, fluttered nervously, as a butterfly, at the beginning of a summer storm, will cling to a flower—wanting, yet not daring to leave lest its frail wings, caught upon the wind, might carry it far out into an unexplored world. But her eyes gazed at him with illimitable yearning; then gently she swayed, stretched out her hands, and ran to him.