“You didn't run away to-night when you offered your life for my liberty. Johnny, you mustn't!”
Under her tender ministrations the sobs began to die away and soon resolved into little catching gasps. He was weak and spent from his injuries; otherwise he would not have given way like this, discovered to her what she had not known before, that in every man, however strong and valiant he may be, there is a little child.
“It has been burning me up, Kitty.”
“I know, I know! It is because you have a soul full of beautiful things, Johnny. God held you back from dying with Olga because He knew I needed you.”
“You will marry me, knowing that I did this thing?”
Marry him! A door to some blinding radiance opened, and she could not see for a little while. Marry him! What a miserable wretch she was to think that he would want her otherwise! Johnny Two-Hawks, fiddling in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, to fill a poor blind man's cup!
“Yes, Johnny. Now, yesterdays never were. For us there is nothing but to-morrows. Out there, in the great country—where souls as well as bodies may stretch themselves—we'll start all over again. You will be the cowman and I'll be the kitchen wench. As in the beginning, so it will always be hereafter, I'll cook your bacon and eggs.”
She pulled his chair round and pushed it toward a window, dropped beside it and laid her cheek against his hand.
“Let us look at the stars, Johnny. They know.” Kuroki, having arrived with coffee and sandwiches, paused on the threshold, gazed, wheeled right about face, and returned to the kitchen.
By and by Kitty looked up into Hawksley's face. He was asleep. She got up carefully, lightly kissed the top of his head—the old wound—and crossed to Cutty's door. She must tell dear old Cutty of the wonderful happiness that was going to be hers. She opened the study door, but did not enter at once. Asleep on his arms. Why, he hadn't even opened that Ali Baba's bag! Tired out—done in, as Johnny Two-Hawks called it in his English fashion. She waited; but as he did not stir she approached with noiseless step. The light poured full upon his head. How gray he was! A boundless pity surged over her that this tender, valiant knight should have missed what first her mother had known—now she herself—requited love. To have everything in the world without that was to have nothing. She would not wake him; she would let him sleep until Captain Harrison came. Lightly she touched the gray head with her lips and stole from the study.