She looked at me numbly.
“Come,” I added, and, putting my arm about her shoulders, dragged her unresisting from the room.
It took us but a moment to descend the rickety stairs to the darkened shop. I stopped in the shop and snatched up my overcoat and hat. When we got to the street I found it had stopped snowing; across the square I could see the glistening white of Washington Arch.
A jolly crowd of young people came hurrying by, and seeing us standing there in the doorway—a girl in Moorish costume, and me with my overcoat on my arm—laughed and waved in friendly greeting. An alert taxi-driver—thinking doubtless we were going to some masquerade—drove his car to the curb and stopped.
“You are safe now, Malella,” I said, after a moment, when we were in the taxi and had started toward the hospital uptown.
Her slim little body swayed toward me; her arms stole up around my neck like the arms of a tired, frightened child who seeks protection.
“You need not be frightened,” I said. “You are never going back.” And then I added aloud, but softly, very softly to myself: “For when they make you well again at the hospital you are going to be with me—always.”
For I was in my twenties then, as I have said, and the decisions of youth are very quickly reached.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the May 29, 1920 issue of All-Story Weekly magazine.