"How clever you are," murmured Winifred, "how clever and how sympathetic! You have such feeling for everybody in trouble."
This was too much for even Flint's sense of humor, which had suffered somewhat, as every one's does, from the process of falling in love. His lips twitched.
"Then I am not more obtuse than any one you ever saw, when the sufferings of others are involved?"
"Don't, pray, don't bring up the things I said that night!" cried Winifred, blushing rosy red.
"This is no time for jesting, dear, I know," Flint answered, coming close to her as she stood against the filmy lace curtain. "No time either for jesting or hoping; only your words did give me a gleam of encouragement to think that perhaps a girl who changed her mind so much in a few weeks might have wavered a little in a few days. Is it possible—Winifred, before I go away, as I must at once—could you find it in your heart to say 'I love you'?"
Winifred made him no answer, at least in words; but she came close to him, and laid both [Pg 352] hands on his arm with a touching gesture of trustful affection.
So absorbed were they in one another that they did not notice how near they stood to the window, or that the curtain was too diaphanous quite to conceal them from view. Suddenly into their world of ecstatic oblivion came a crash, a sound of falling glass, a dull thud against the wall opposite to the window.
"Great Heavens!" cried Flint, looking anxiously at Winifred. "What was that? Are you sure you're not hurt, my darling?"
Even as he spoke, another report was heard outside, and, throwing open the curtains, they saw a man on the other side of the street stagger and fall. Flint rushed to the door, down the steps and across the sidewalk. A crowd had already collected.
"He is dead,—stone dead," said one, kneeling with his hand over his heart.