The moonlight was white and bright as day, and for one moment each looked deep into the other’s heart.
“Thank God! Oh, thank God!” sobbed the girl. “You’re alive! Alive! Alive!”
Howard tried to smile. “Thanks to you,” he answered. “It was the bravest act I have ever known. I don’t see how——”
But Dorothy threw up her hand. “Please! Please, don’t speak of it!” she implored. “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.”
Howard struggled to his feet. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but honor held him back. Perhaps she loved him—yes, but she was overwrought. He could not take advantage of her emotion—nor of her position. Later, when she was restored to her friends—the light died from his eyes as he remembered his own doom.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “It is all that I can say. Thank you.”
Dorothy’s bosom heaved. “No,” she said, “it is not all. You said more while you were unconscious. You were about to say more an instant ago. Then you stopped. Why?”
“I—I——”
“I could read your heart in your eyes. Say what you had in it. Say it! Say it!”
“I am not worthy. I am——”