“Yes,” she said.
They looked breathlessly at one another; suddenly a hot blush covered her neck and face; and his eyes flashed triumph.
“You have not forgotten!” he cried.
And there, on the very edge of death itself, the bright shame glowed and glowed in her cheeks, and her distressed eyes fell before his.
“You kissed me,” he said, looking at her.
“I—I thought I had—killed you—” she stammered.
“And you kissed me on the lips.... In that moment of peril you waited to do that. Your tears fell on my face. I felt them. And I tell you that, even had I been lying there dead instead of partly stunned, I would have known what you did to me after you struck me down.”
Her head sank lower; the color ran riot from throat to brow.
He spoke again, quietly, yet a strange undertone of exaltation thrilled his voice and transfigured the thin, war-worn features she had forgotten, so that, as she lifted her eyes to him again, the same boy looked back at her from the mist of the long dead years.
“Messenger,” he said, “I have never forgotten. And now it is too late to forget your tears on my face—the touch of your lips on mine. I would not if I could.... It was worth living for—dying for.... Once—I hoped—some day—after this—all this trouble ended—my romance might come—true——”