“I have put it clear how it is,” he pursued. “I ought to have seen from the start I was not the sort to keep you happy.”
“But,” said Molly—“but I—you ought—please try to keep me happy!” And sinking by his chair, she hid her face on his knees.
Speechless, he bent down and folded her round, putting his hands on the hair that had been always his delight. Presently he whispered:— “You have beat me; how can I fight this?”
She answered nothing. The Navajo's scarlet and black folds fell over both. Not with words, not even with meeting eyes, did the two plight their troth in this first new hour. So they remained long, the fair head nesting in the great arms, and the black head laid against it, while over the silent room presided the little Grandmother Stark in her frame, rosy, blue, and flaxen, not quite familiar, not quite smiling.
XXVIII. NO DREAM TO WAKE FROM
For a long while after she had left him, he lay still, stretched in his chair. His eyes were fixed steadily upon the open window and the sunshine outside. There he watched the movement of the leaves upon the green cottonwoods. What had she said to him when she went? She had said, “Now I know how unhappy I have been.” These sweet words he repeated to himself over and over, fearing in some way that he might lose them. They almost slipped from him at times; but with a jump of his mind he caught them again and held them,—and then—“I'm not all strong yet,” he murmured. “I must have been very sick.” And, weak from his bullet wound and fever, he closed his eyes without knowing it. There were the cottonwoods again, waving, waving; and he felt the cool, pleasant air from the window. He saw the light draught stir the ashes in the great stone fireplace. “I have been asleep,” he said. “But she was cert'nly here herself. Oh, yes. Surely. She always has to go away every day because the doctor says—why, she was readin'!” he broke off, aloud. “DAVID COPPERFIELD.” There it was on the floor. “Aha! nailed you anyway!” he said. “But how scared I am of myself!—You're a fool. Of course it's so. No fever business could make yu' feel like this.”
His eye dwelt awhile on the fireplace, next on the deer horns, and next it travelled toward the shelf where her books were; but it stopped before reaching them.
“Better say off the names before I look,” said he. “I've had a heap o' misreading visions. And—and supposin'—if this was just my sickness fooling me some more—I'd want to die. I would die! Now we'll see. If COPPERFIELD is on the floor” (he looked stealthily to be sure that it was), “then she was readin' to me when everything happened, and then there should be a hole in the book row, top, left. Top, left,” he repeated, and warily brought his glance to the place. “Proved!” he cried. “It's all so!”
He now noticed the miniature of Grandmother Stark. “You are awful like her,” he whispered. “You're cert'nly awful like her. May I kiss you too, ma'am?”