For a time they clung together in tears. But at last he raised his head and, putting one of his hands on each of her arms, looked curiously into her eyes. The storm of her emotion was passed, and she was calm now. She seemed changed also from the small woman of the day before. Her spirit had withdrawn from the surface, and was gazing forth from deeper levels of life. The expression of her eyes was wiser, steadier; she even appeared physically larger, a stronger woman, than she had been before. What encounters of the spirit had she faced alone through all the dark of the night?
In the long gaze that passed between them they were confronted by a tremendous question. Each asked it silently of the other. Julie was the first to answer.
“Yes,” she nodded. “It’s come to an end, my honey. We got to part now—’fore I kill somebody else.”
“Julie, she was crazy!” he cried as before.
But she brushed his words aside. “All night I’ve seen the blood on her waist,” she said. “It mocked me. The two were right together: the clean waist I was so proud with myself for fixin’ for her, an’ the spots of her blood. They were like mouths laughing at me with the awfulest laughter—red words hollerin’ out across the world, ‘Look! Look! Look at the way Julie Rose gives life to folks!’ Tim, last night I went down deep—I was shoved down into the deepest places—I see it all different now—I’ve got to stand square with folks now.”
He nodded. “Yes, it’s come to that with both of us—Julie,” he burst out, “I ain’t where I ought to be! When the soldiers went by in the street, an’ that night when they showed the doughboys in France on the screen, you didn’t notice, I reckon—”
“I did. I did!” she broke in. “I’ve known all along how it was with you, but I wouldn’t let you speak. God forgive me! I kept you from it. I was scared.”
“Well,” he went on. “That night when they showed our boys goin’ up to the front, there was one little feller on the screen—a runty kind of a little feller like me—an’ as he went by he turned so’s you saw his full face. Julie, he looked straight at me; an’ something jumped in me an’ sez, ‘That’s your brother. Why ain’t you with him?’”
“I know, I know,” she cried poignantly. “Your brother! My sister! We thought when we found ourselves we was all, but now we’ve caught a sight of the other folks.”
“So I got to go now,” he ended. “I’ll give myself up—”