Charron looked up. His eyes rested on the compassion of his friend’s face, as Rainger’s eyes had rested on his star.
“I guess this has decided for us, Will. You’re the one who will take the dust and go out and see your girl this winter; for you’re the one who needs to go the most.”
Charron looked at him, still with breathless, humble questioning.
“It’s this way, Will. Laure and I, we’re secure of each other. We can wait. Two years—five years—twenty; if it’s God’s will we can afford to wait a lifetime, and know it will make no difference. She trusts me as I trust her. Love like that—casts out fear.” He finished, almost with tenderness. “If I’d seen you with anything of hers—the most intimate, the most dear things,—in your hands, on your heart, I’d have known there was some explanation. Even then I couldn’t have doubted her . . . . or you.
“But it’s not that way with you. Your love isn’t self-sustaining. It needs to see, to touch, to know; or else it doubts and suffers. Take the dust and go and see Maisie. But—don’t teach her to doubt, poor child.”
“Jack . . . .”
“Ours is the stronger, you see, Will. And the strong things of life can always afford to wait. It’s you who must go and I who must stay, because your need’s the greater of the two.”
He rose unsteadily to his feet, and waited a moment. But there was no word from Charron, flung before him in the dust of the soul. Rainger turned away and took a few steps down the giddy ledge, holding to the rocks as he went. But in a little while he paused, and turned again, and called, wistfully: “Will!”
Some sort of a broken answer. Rainger, his eyes on his serene star, smiled a little.
“I’m kind of—knocked about, Will. Won’t you come and help me home?”