“Say it again,” he commanded sternly.
“Oh, Jack, dear, please sit down,” she cried in a pitiful voice.
He sat down, then lay back reclining on his arm. “Now your knife, Jack,” she said, feeling hurriedly through his pockets.
“Here you are,” he said, handing her the knife, biting his lips the while and fighting back a feeling of faintness.
Quickly slipping behind him, she whipped off her white petticoat and tore it into strips. Then cutting the bloody shirt sleeve, she laid bare the arm. The wound was superficial. The shot had torn a wide gash little deeper than the skin from wrist to shoulder, with here and there a bite into the flesh. Swiftly, deftly, with fingers that never fumbled, she bandaged the arm, putting in little pads where the blood seemed to be pumping freely.
“That's fine,” said Jack. “You are a brick, Kathleen. I think—I will—just lie down—a bit. I feel—rather rotten.” As he spoke he caught hold of her arm to steady himself. She caught him in her arms and eased him down upon the stubble. With eyes closed and a face that looked like death he lay quite still.
“Jack,” she cried aloud in her terror. “Don't faint. You must not faint.”
But white and ghastly he lay unconscious, the blood still welling right through the bandages on his wounded arm. She knew that in some way she must stop the bleeding. Swiftly she undid the bandages and found a pumping artery in the forearm. “What is it that they do?” she said to herself. Then she remembered. Making a tourniquet, she applied it to the upper arm. Then rolling up a bloody bandage into a pad, she laid it upon the pumping artery and bound it firmly down into place. Then flexing the forearm hard upon it, she bandaged all securely again. Still the wounded man lay unconscious. The girl was terrified. She placed her hand over his heart. It was beating but very faintly. In the agony and terror of the moment as in a flash of light her heart stood suddenly wide open to her, and the thing that for the past months had lain hidden within her deeper than her consciousness, a secret joy and pain, leaped strong and full into the open, and she knew that this man who lay bleeding and ghastly before her was dearer to her than her own life. The sudden rush of this consciousness sweeping like a flood over her soul broke down and carried away the barrier of her maidenly reserve. Leaning over him in a passion of self-abandonment, she breathed, “Oh, Jack, dear, dear Jack.” As he lay there white and still, into her love there came a maternal tender yearning of pity. She lifted his head in her arm, and murmured brokenly, “Oh, my love, my dear love.” She kissed him on his white lips.
At the touch of her lips Jack opened his eyes, gazed at her for a moment, then with dawning recognition, he said with a faint smile, “Do—it—again.”
“Oh, you heard,” she cried, the red blood flooding face and neck, “but I don't care, only don't go off again. You will not, Jack, you must not.”