Where the Souls of Men are Calling Part 23

"I had not intended to put it so cruelly, Jeb. You've done a great thing to-night, because you conquered two enemies at the same time--the one within you being infinitely a harder fight than the one without. I appreciate that, and am glad for you."

"I want you to forget that--that disgrace at the sh.e.l.l hole," he said, doggedly.

"Forget?" Her voice broke hysterically, and her eyes filled with tears of pity. "Ask me to forgive it, Jeb, and I may--but, forget it? Oh, how can I? Don't you understand?--I _saw_ it! I _saw_ it!"

"Stop, stop--please!" he cried huskily, pa.s.sing his hand across his face. "Then don't forget, if--if you can't; but I'd hate to think of the Colonel, and Aunt Sallie, and----"

"Your secret is safe, if that's what you fear," she said, now as composedly as she had a moment before been moved. Again, for half a minute, she faced the sunrise, when her voice came wistfully:

"Oh, G.o.d, if--if I just hadn't _seen_ it!"

He realized with full conviction that an impa.s.sable gulf lay between him and this girl. It was not his debasing weakness, so much as her discovery of it, that would forever stamp him with the brand of shame.

The Arab sheik who one time said: "A thief may loot my tent and I will curse all thieves, but do I catch him at it and he dies!"--expressed the mind of all humanity. Marian had _seen_ Jeb; and this meant that he was dead to her.

He watched her for a moment longer, then in a dispirited voice asked:

"Shall I tell Bonsecours it's all right for me to go?"

Without taking her face from the east, she answered evenly:

"Yes; tell him it's all right for you to go. I am praying G.o.d to watch over you, and--and make you truly worthy of a place among our soldiers from home."

He glanced back, and saw, far beyond the quadrangle, two stretcher-bearers carrying Tim to the waiting ambulance. Once more he looked at Marian, tried twice to speak, but stood humbly mute before her--awed by her enn.o.bling beauty. For again her exquisite hands were crossed over the red emblem upon her breast, her eyes gazed into the glorified sky, and her lips moved as she pleaded with the G.o.d of Hosts to fire this playmate at her side with the divine spark of courage--and keep him brave.

Jeb bowed his head, feeling as though he were within the precinct of a holy shrine; then in silence turned and went down the road, walking with firm steps which, he prayed, would lead to the dawn of a new manhood.

The first of the "75's" crashed spitefully, and in a chaotic instant the air and earth again were shorn of their blessed peace. Instantly the sky became streaked with trails of smoke from over-pa.s.sing sh.e.l.ls. Far to the north they fell and burst into white spray, as though a long Atlantic comber were pounding on a rocky sh.o.r.e.

She turned once and looked toward it, moved by infinite pity for the men who were being shattered; then started slowly back into the quadrangle, just as Bonsecours dashed wildly up in search of her.

There were no words that he could say; he merely stood in front of her, holding out his arms. Her fingers, still laced over the Red Cross, fluttered nervously, as a b.u.t.terfly, at the beginning of a summer storm, will cling to a flower--wanting, yet not daring to leave lest its frail wings, caught upon the wind, might carry it far out into an unexplored world. But her eyes gazed at him with illimitable yearning; then gently she swayed, stretched out her hands, and ran to him.

CHAPTER XVII

Trees that lined the streets of Hillsdale were touched with tints of red and gold, frescoed by the magic brush of approaching winter.

In the _Eagle_ office sat the Colonel and Mr. Strong, looking thoughtfully into their laps. Tears glistened on their cheeks; for several minutes neither of them had spoken. Held in the editor's fingers was an open letter just received, while in the Colonel's inert hand lay a clipping from the Paris _Figaro_. The Colonel now glanced up slowly but, seeing Mr. Strong's face, sharply exclaimed:

"I wish you'd stop your infernal weeping, Amos!"

"I wish you'd stop your own!" the editor replied with equal asperity; then both of them began to laugh.

"I confess, Amos, that it's hard to keep back tears. Why, by gad, sir, he has done as much as we ever did in the old fracas over here!--more, sir! And Marian--who the devil is that fellow she eulogizes to the sky?

Here," he handed over the clipping, "read this again! It's a pity it isn't printed in Englis.h.!.+"

"Let me first read what Marian says, Roger; then we'll take the clipping."

Three times within the last half hour these old gentlemen had followed exactly this same routine: first taking Marian's letter, written from Paris where she had been sent for a well-earned rest, and then laboriously translating the newspaper item she inclosed to them.

Mr. Strong now adjusted his gla.s.ses and began the letter a fourth time, while the Colonel leaned forward, hanging upon each word. It recited first what Tim Doreen had magnanimously told about Jeb, losing none of that Irishman's vividness; then it went on at great length to describe a certain Dr. Georges Bonsecours. Page after page she wrote of him; citing innumerable instances of his valor, both while under gruelling fire out on the field and endless hours of indefatigable work beneath the dug-out shelters. Having fully covered his present, she dashed into his past with a reckless disregard of ink and paper, and filled many other pages.

Only once did the Colonel interrupt, and then to remark drily:

"Seems like a pretty thorough biographical sketch, Amos."

He had made this same observation, just at this same place, upon each of the previous readings; and the editor had hesitated, cleared his throat--as he now did--before continuing with the only mention Marian had written of this great surgeon's future, which was, briefly:

"When the war is over, he is coming out to Hillsdale."

For a fourth time now Mr. Strong's eyes grew moist, as he asked:

"What do you suppose he wants to come out here to Hillsdale for?"

The Colonel had not previously deigned to answer this; he had merely subsided into silence and let a lump rise in his throat in sympathy with the editor. This time, however, he turned squarely to his friend and asked:

"Amos, are you trying to be a pig-headed old fool, or do you really want the truth!"

Mr. Strong looked at him rather humorously.

"I think I'll dodge the truth, at any rate, Roger--until this doctor arrives. How do you think Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie will take it?"

"Take it? Why, they'll take it just as we do--with joyful hearts, because their boy and our girl have achieved great things! I never wanted her to marry Jeb, anyhow!" And to Mr. Strong's smile of surprise, he thundered: "By cracky, I tell you I didn't, Roger! Jeb was too immature for her--he had yet to prove himself!"

"He's proved himself now," the editor emphatically replied.

"He has, indeed," the Colonel's voice sank to tenderness. "He has, indeed," he added to himself, as though he could not quite understand it. "But, Amos, she needs a man of broader calibre--you know she does!

They weren't ever seriously in love with each other, anyhow!--don't interrupt me again!--I tell you they weren't! Just because their dear mothers expressed a wish for them to marry, you, and those two little old maids out there, got to sentimentalizing over it until the poor children were hypnotized. Why, confound it, I call them lucky to have escaped! I wonder, by the way," he added thoughtfully, "if this Doctor What's-his-name talks English, or the jargon in which that clipping is printed! He'll have a stupid time here in Hillsdale, that's all I've got to say."

Mr. Strong laughed outright.

"You're mighty c.o.c.k-sure about him and Marian!"

"Because I don't admit being a pig-headed old fool," the Colonel grinned. "If ever invisible words were written between lines of a letter, they're there in your hand! He's asked her, to a certainty; and she has either said yes, or intends to! Wait for the next mail! The little vixen is just preparing us--see if I ain't right! Now, read the other, Amos," he added gently.

The clipping was a long one, being a list of men in the American Army who had been recommended for the _Croix de Guerre_, and, among the many, he read:

"'Soldier Jebediah Tumpson, for going through a heavy barrage to search for a wounded platoon leader, and after two hours under constant fire bringing him back in safety.'"

"What's that thing they want to give him?" the Colonel asked, after they had been silent with their own thoughts for several moments. There was a huskiness in his voice that suggested another approach of tears.

"_Croix de Guerre_," Mr. Strong coughed and answered. "It means the Cross of War."

"Then why the devil didn't you say Cross of War, Amos," he demanded, trying valiantly to hide his emotion. "What's the sense of using words that sound like a dog fight!--g-r-r-r-r!--Croix de G-r-r-r-r, indeed!--when you know how to say it in decent American Englis.h.!.+"

The editor smiled understandingly, and again they relapsed into meditation; their hearts beating happily, the Colonel's stout boot tapping contentedly upon the oaken floor.