Once more her head was bent over her work. He saw how with every stitch she was fighting stubbornly for calm—fighting with all the dogged desperation of a high-minded woman who sees herself trembling at the edge of a bottomless abyss. He knew now for certain that her apparent happiness was a sham and an heroic lie—that she knew what he knew of Travers' outside life, and suffered with the intensity which honor must suffer when linked with dishonor. He saw, with a soldier's instinctive admiration, that she was holding her ground against the fierce and unexpected attack of an overwhelming enemy, and that he, who had his own battle to fight, must hold out to her a helping, strengthening comrade's hand.
"Lois!" he said quietly. "Lois!"
She went on working. The name had been a test of her strength, and she had borne it. He knew that he could go on with what he had to say.
"Lois, we had our young enthusiasms in those old days—crazes, we will call them—and of course, like all young enthusiasms, they are gone for ever. But there were other things. Sometimes we used to talk very seriously about life, do you remember? I dare say we talked nonsense for the greater part—we were very young—but we were intensely serious. We told each other what we thought life was, and what we intended to make of it. It was then we had the idea of the cathedral."
She looked up earnestly at him.
"The cathedral? Haven't you forgotten?"
"No. I never forgot it."
"I thought you had. It is all such a long time ago. When I read about you in the papers, and heard of all the wonders you had done, I was sure you must have forgotten the chatter of your fifteen-year-old playfellow. A man who spends his day as you did, in the saddle, and the night in long, anxious watches, does not have time for such ideas as we cultivated in those days."
"You are wrong, Lois. The idea is everything. It is the mainspring of a man's life. If I did anything wonderful, as you say, it was for the sake of the cathedral. There was, for instance, one night which I remember very well. A whole tribe had risen. Half my men were down with fever, and I felt—well, pretty bad. I was a bit delirious, I fancy, and in delirium very often the foundations of a man's character come uppermost. The cathedral was always in my mind. I saw your half, and it was getting on splendidly. That goaded me. I felt I had to go on, too. So I pulled myself together and went ahead. We pulled through somehow, and I have always felt that in that night I laid the chief stone."
The burning tears sprang to her eyes.