A week flew past. In the convalescent ward there was the greatest amount of suppressed excitement. All the soldiers loved Helen, and they showered her with queer, pathetic little gifts, always the best of their poor store of belongings. Tony was not to leave his cot. He would have to be moved across Europe on a stretcher, but he lay beaming at the men who called good wishes to him in half a dozen languages.
The wedding morning dawned clear and beautiful. Every soldier who could hobble was out early gathering flowers and boughs with which they trimmed the ward. Helen, who was a hundred yards away, in the nurses’ tent, knew nothing of all this. An hour before she was to come to meet Tony, the old doctor, bearing a large package, stood before the tent.
“My dear,” he said awkwardly when Helen appeared, “I—er—wanted to do something for you, and it gave me a good deal of happiness to pretend that you were my own daughter, if you don’t object. I happen to have a sister in Paris, and I telegraphed her a week ago. I think I have heard you say you were size thirty-six. Well, my dear, this package has just come. She sent it in care of a reserve of nurses. You see—ha—hum—the men will be so pleased. Now you put it on if it is fit for you, and wear it, with the love of a grateful old man.” He turned and abruptly walked away as Helen untied the box, but he could not so escape from those swift feet. There was a cry as the girl peered beneath the papers, and then a swift rush toward him. So it happened that it was not Zaidos’ reluctant and unaccustomed shoulder on which the happy tears were shed, and it was not to Tony that Helen’s last tender girl-kisses were given.
And when the time came for the simple, sad little ceremony in the hospital ward, it was not a dark clad nurse who walked between the cots on the doctor’s arm, but such a vision of loveliness that the men gasped and Tony turned so pale that the aid beside him reached for the spirits of ammonia. For the doctor’s present was a wedding dress, just as satiny and lacy and long as any bride in Mayfair could have worn.
The veil covered her lovely face, and through it her dark eyes lingered tenderly on the eager white faces that lined her path. And last they rested on Tony. Zaidos caught the look, and it made him feel that he would do most anything to have anyone look at him like that. It was a look that a fellow could never bear unless he had lived a clean and honest life. Zaidos, seeing this wonderful look that was meant for Tony alone, glanced quickly away and somehow it was he, down in his innermost heart, who longed for a shoulder to cry on!
In a few short minutes the little ceremony was over, and a musical genius played the wedding march on a mouth-organ so you’d know it anywhere. He followed that with God Save the King, and Tipperary, while Helen, looking more like an angel every minute, walked slowly down the aisle, shaking hands with the men. She came at last to one whose arms were both gone. Without a moment’s hesitation she stooped and pressed a kiss on the upturned brow. Another moment with a last smile and wave of her hand, she was gone, leaving the men with their beautiful memory.
Zaidos asked the doctor, who was openly wiping his eyes, to speak with him a moment outside.
“You know my cousin is out there,” he said, with a wave of the arm at the field where great trenches made a resting place for hundreds of unknown men. “I’ve been trying to think of something to do for him, something to remember him by. I couldn’t think of anything. First I thought of a monument; and then I thought of tablets in the church at Saloniki. Then it just happened to come to me, that why not do something for our field hospital here. When I get to England I will arrange to have the money sent you. Do you approve of that?”
“Of course I do, my boy,” said the doctor heartily. “Of course I approve! Any help would be most gratefully accepted. You know how short we are for everything. Send anything you feel like affording. Any little sum you happen to want to give.”
“I was wondering about five hundred dollars a month, while the war lasts,” said Zaidos musingly. “Would that make much difference?”