“No, if they live the first hour after being shot, they get well,” Maggie persisted, with apparent sincerity. “Here, put your hand on his heart—do you feel it? What a strong heart he has to live so well! what a strong, strong heart!”
“Yes, a strong, strong heart!” Tears were falling for him now that there was none to see them, scalding their way down her pale cheeks.
“He must have carried something sacred with him to give him such strength, such life.”
“He carried honor,” said Frances, more to herself than to Maggie, doubting that she would understand.
“And love, maybe?” said Maggie, with soft word, soft upward-glancing of her feeling dark eyes.
“Who can tell?” Frances answered, turning her head away.
Maggie drew the sheet over him and stood looking down into his severe white face.
“If he could speak he would ask for his mother, and for water then, and after that the one he loves. That is the way a man’s mind carries those three precious things when death blows its breath in his face.”
“I do not know,” said Frances, slowly.
There was such stress in waiting, such silence in the world, and such emptiness and pain! Reverently as Maggie’s voice was lowered, soft and sympathetic as her word, Frances longed for her to be still, and 270 go and leave her alone with him. She longed to hold the dear spark of his faltering life in her own hands, alone, quite alone; to warm it back to strength in her own lone heart. Surely her name could not be the last in his remembrance, no matter for the disturbing breath of death.