The surgeon went away. Jane did what she could to induce sleep for Dyer, who needed it badly, but his eyes were still wide when dawn drew near. By and by, as she came to give him water, which he drank thirstily, he said slowly:
“Did you hear the preacher the time he told about that feller Daniel in ’mongst the lions?”
“No, I don’t think so, Enos.”
“I was just wonderin’ if he was in ’mongst ’em now anywheres. If he is, I guess he won’t get hurt. I’ve thought about that story a lot since I heard him tellin’ it. I guess if God could take care of anybody when lions was walkin’ all ’round him, He could do it when anybody was fightin’, don’t you? And I guess the preacher’s fightin’, wherever he is.”
Jane’s lips smiled a little. “Chaplains don’t fight, you know.”
“I’ll bet he does,” Dyer insisted.
She didn’t try to change his conviction, but somehow it took hold of her; and presently, in a strange hush that fell just before the dawn, when there came a cessation of sound of the guns which usually were to be heard clearly at this distance from the Front, she stood in a doorway that faced the east and took a well-worn letter from her pocket. In the faint light from within the ward her eyes once more scanned lines she already knew by heart.
Letters from Black had reached her infrequently and the latest was dated weeks ago. Of course he could give her no details of his movements, neither past nor expected; she understood also that he could say little of that which was personal to himself and Jane. No man writes for the scrutinizing eye of a censor that which he would say to one alone. Yet somehow he had managed to convey a very vivid sense of his presence, and of his constant thought of her, in the midst of his work among his men. The last paragraph, especially, was one to stay by her while she should have a memory, reserved though the words were:
“I am very sure that in all this experience you are having you must find the thing I so much want you to find. How can you escape it? It is all around you. I can’t get away from it a minute. You know what I mean. I never felt it so strongly, nor so depended upon it. Every hour it is in my thought of you. You are well up toward the Front now, I suppose. At any time a bomb may be dropped on your Hospital; it is always a shining mark for the enemy. Yet I am not anxious about you. For this I know:—whatever happens to you or me, it can do no harm to the eternal thing which is ours.”
She read the words again and again. Well she knew what they meant; in spite of the restraint in them they were full to the brim with his feeling toward her. Where was he now—near—or far? There had been a rumour here that the division in which he served had been suddenly rushed from its training trenches to the Front, in a desperate attempt to stem the creeping enemy tide threatening to become a deluge and wash away all defences. There were many rumours; few could be trusted. But it might easily be true; he might at this very hour be under fire, even though he remained in the shelter of trench or dugout. Would he stay in such shelter? The question had never occurred to her in just this form before. Her ideas of the duties of a regimental chaplain were all based on the knowledge that he was a non-combatant, like Cary. She had had far more fears for her brother, with his temperament, full of recklessness and daring, than for Robert Black. But now, though she scouted the idea of Black’s actually fighting, she had a sudden vision of him in danger. If he had gone with his men up to those front lines, where was he to-night?