“Begobs,” said Dennis, “do yez think Oi could stand here wid a dry eye if he was dead?”
Leonore put her head on Dennis’s shoulder, and began to sob softly. For a moment Dennis looked aghast at the results of his speech, but suddenly his face changed. “Shure,” he whispered, “we all love him just like that, an that’s why the Blessed Virgin saved him for us.”
Then Leonore, with tears in her eyes, said, “I felt it,” in the most joyful of voices. A voice that had a whole Te Deum in it.
“Won’t you let me see him?” she begged. “I won’t wake him, I promise you.”
“That yez shall,” said Dennis. “Will yez take my arm?” The four passed within the lines. “Step careful,” he continued. “There’s pavin’ stones, and rails, and plate-glass everywheres. It looks like there’d been a primary itself.”
All thought that was the best of jokes and laughed. They passed round a great chasm in the street and sidewalk. Then they came to long rows of bodies stretched on the grass, or rather what was left of the grass, in the Park. Leonore shuddered. “Are they all dead?” she whispered. “Dead! Shurely not. It’s the regiment sleepin’,” she was told. They passed between these rows for a little distance. “This is him,” said Dennis, “sleepin’ like a babby.” Dennis turned his back and began to describe the explosion to Mrs. D’Alloi and Watts.
There, half covered with a blanket, wrapped in a regulation great coat, his head pillowed on a roll of newspapers, lay Peter. Leonore knelt down on the ground beside him, regardless of the proprieties or the damp. She listened to hear if he was breathing, and when she found that he actually was, her face had on it a little thanksgiving proclamation of its own. Then with the prettiest of motherly manners, she softly pulled the blanket up and tucked it in about his arms. Then she looked to see if there was not something else to do. But there was nothing. So she made more. “The poor dear oughtn’t to sleep without something on his head. He’ll take cold.” She took her handkerchief and tried to fix it so that it should protect Peter’s head. She tried four different ways, any one of which would have served; but each time she thought of a better way, and had to try once more. She probably would have thought of a fifth, if Peter had not suddenly opened his eyes.
“Oh!” said Leonore, “what a shame? I’ve waked you up. And just as I had fixed it right.”
Peter studied the situation calmly, without moving a muscle. He looked at the kneeling figure for some time. Then he looked up at the arc light a little distance away. Then he looked at the City Hall clock. Then his eyes came back to Leonore. “Peter,” he said finally, “this is getting to be a monomania. You must stop it.”
“What?” said Leonore, laughing at his manner as if it was intended as a joke.