"I did not want to tell you until I was sure the cure was real and permanent. And I was not sure until I met the surgeon in New York, yesterday."
"You could have told me last night. I might have been killed to-day and never have known."
Gerard exchanged with Mr. Rose a glance of very sad understanding, a mutual acknowledgment of mutual error.
"Would you have driven the Mercury to-day against your father's wish, if you had known that I should be able to drive my own car next year? I think not. If you were to be taken from me and this life, I wanted you to take with you the memory of this race instead of the humiliation of a withdrawal. And I believed that I was dealing with an unsteadied boy who needed the sharp tonic of work and danger—ah, Corrie, forgive me!—instead of the strongest man in endurance I ever knew. But I would tell no one else until I did you, although," he turned to the radiant girl, "although it was hard not to hold out both hands to Flavia."
She put her hands in both his, then, and felt them close on hers for all time.
"Rupert knew," Corrie presently divined, as the unsurprised mechanician lounged toward them.
"Yes, Rupert knew," Gerard confirmed. "He helped me go through the treatment each day. One reason I did not tell you what we were doing, was that the process was not very pleasant, and it used to leave me rather upset and sick for a while—you caught me too soon after it that morning you signed the contracts. Don't wince; you had nothing to do with my smash."
"But I blamed myself, always!" Corrie stood up, thrusting his hands into his pockets and squaring his shoulders with the sturdy responsibility so easily read now. "I had no business to take Isabel there, and I put the mischief into her head by pitching bolts at you. She couldn't tell it was in fun. I—I would rather have known you'd get well, Gerard, than have known I was cleared."
"Didn't it ever occur to you, Corrie, to blame us, when we were so ready to convict you and pass judgment?" countered Gerard.