Almost at once the door opened, and Simon passed out.
Patricia fingered her letter as though it were unreal.
At length—
“I—I can’t say much,” she said shakily. “And I can’t attempt to thank.”
“You know that I want no thanks,” said Simon Beaulieu.
“But I’d like to beg your pardon for what I said at Goodwood. I might have known, Simon . . . I—I’ve no excuse.”
“I think you had every excuse,” said Simon Beaulieu. “I should have been most bitter. If I’d just shown you my death-warrant out of the blue, and you—you’d said, ‘One moment . . . I jus’ want to see a man about a dog,’ I should have gone off the deep end.”
Patricia stared at the letter.
“I’m dazed,” she said. “Dazed. I owe you more than my life, yet—I can’t thank you, Simon. It—it won’t go into words. . . . I’ll pray for you every night: but, then, that’s nothing. I’ve done that for months. The queer thing is I feel more proud than grateful—proud of . . . my man. . . .”