"Well, I'll be hanged!"
"I'm not turning holy, Wheeler. I am what I am. But that boy lying out there—I can't bear it! It wouldn't make any difference with us—afterward. You know where you stand with me and for always, but it would mean the dying happy of a boy who fought for us. Let me marry that boy, Wheeler. Let his light go out in happiness. Wheeler? Please, Wheeler?" He would not meet her eyes. "Wheeler?"
"Go to it, Hester," he said, coughing about in his throat and rising to walk away. "Bring him here and give him the fat of the land. You can count on me to keep out of the way. Go to it," he repeated.
And so they were married, Hester holding his hand beside the hospital cot, the man nurse and doctor standing by, and the chaplain incanting the immemorial words. A bar of sunshine lay across the bed, and Gerald pronounced each "I will" in a lifted voice that carried to the four corners of the little room. She was allowed to stay that night past hospital hours, and they talked with the dusk flowing over them.
"Hester, Hester," he said, "I should have had the strength to hold out against your making this terrible sacrifice."
"It's the happiest hour of my life," she said, kissing him.
"I feel well enough to get up now, sweetheart."
"Gerald, don't force. You've weeks ahead before you are ready for that."
"But to-morrow, dear, home! In whose car are you calling for me to-morrow to take me home?"
"In a friend's, dearest."