“I suppose so—if we must.” Peter’s voice was very dull. “But why? I’ve always had an idea that happiness was something like opportunity; it had to be snatched and held fast when it came your way, or you might never have another chance at it.” Had Sheila brought him to the gates of Paradise only to bar them against his entering? he wondered.
The woman who loved him understood and laid her hand on his breast as if she would stay the hurt there if she could. “It may make it easier if you know that the giving up is going to be hard for me, too. I’ve thought about that home of ours so long that I’ve begun to see it and all that goes with it. I even stumble upon it in my dreams. It’s always at the end of a long, tired road, going uphill. If I thought I should have to give it up, I wouldn’t have the courage to do what I’m going to now.”
She sat down on the bench, laid her arms over the sill of the rustic window, and looked toward the pond. The night was very still; the blurred outlines of the swans, huddled against the bank, were the only signs of life. When she spoke it was almost to herself.
“When they sent me away from the San three years ago I thought I could never bear it—to go away alone, that way, disgraced, to begin work over again in a strange place, among strange people. But I had to do it, just as I have to do this.” She straightened and faced Peter. Her voice changed; it belonged to the curt, determined Sheila.
“I’m going across, to nurse the boys over there. The boy over in the Surgical pointed the way for me. There’s a big thing going on in the world—something almost as big as the war—it’s the business of getting the boys ready for life after their share in the war is over, and I don’t mean just nursing their bodies back to health. Everything is changed for them; they’ve got new standards, new interests, new hearts, new souls, and we women have got to keep pace with them. And we mustn’t fail them—don’t you see that? Oh, I know I have no place of my own in the war: you are safe, and I have no brothers. But I’m a woman—a nurse, thank God! And I’m free to go for the mothers and sweethearts who can’t. Don’t you understand?”
And Peter answered from an overwhelmingly full and troubled heart, “Oh yes, I understand.”
“I knew you would.” Sheila raised starry eyes to the man who had never failed her. “Those boys will need all the sympathy, all the wholesome tenderness we can send across to them, and they’ll need our hands at their backs until they get their foothold again. I’ve served my apprenticeship at that so long I can do it.”
Peter gathered her close in his arms. “God and I know how well.”
It was not until they were leaving the gardens that Peter asked the question that had been in his mind all through the evening. “What about the wedding? I suppose you’re not going to marry me, now.”
“Can’t. Haven’t the courage. Man of mine, don’t you know that after I once belonged to you I couldn’t leave you? I’ve only had sips of happiness so far. If I once drained the cup, only God’s hand could take it from me.”