"I wasn't sure that I ought to write. To some men I couldn't have written—"
His face lighted. "When your note came—I can't tell you what it meant to me. I shouldn't like to think of what this day would have been for me if you had not written. Everybody is calling me—a coward. You know that. You heard Witherspoon just now pitying me, not in words, but his manner."
"Oh, Ralph," how easily she disposed of him. "Ralph crows, like a—rooster."
They looked at each other and tried to laugh. But they were not laughing in their hearts.
He lifted her hand and kissed it—then he stood well away from her, anchoring himself again to the silken tassel. "Now that you know a part," he said, from that safe distance, "I'd like to tell you all of it, if I may."
As he talked her fingers were busy with her knitting, but there came moments when she laid it down and looked up at him with eyes that mirrored his own earnestness.
"It—it hasn't been easy," he said in conclusion, "but—but if you will be my friend, nothing will be hard."
She tried to speak—was shaken as if by a strong wind, and her knitting went up as a shield.
"My dear, you are crying," he said, and was on his knees beside her.
And now they were caught in the tide of that mighty wave which was sweeping the world!