The Turmoil Part 45

"No, no, I wasn't hurt at all--Mary. It was father who came nearer it.

He saved me."

"Yes, I saw; but you had fallen. I couldn't get through the crowd until you had gone. And I wanted to KNOW."

"Mary--would you--have minded?" he said.

There was a long interval before she answered.

"Yes."

"Then why--"

"Yes, Bibbs?"

"I don't know what to say," he cried. "It's so wonderful to hear your voice again--I'm shaking, Mary--I--I don't know--I don't know anything except that I AM talking to you! It IS you--Mary?"

"Yes, Bibbs!"

"Mary--I've seen you from my window at home--only five times since I--since then. You looked--oh, how can I tell you? It was like a man chained in a cave catching a glimpse of the blue sky, Mary. Mary, won't you--let me see you again--near? I think I could make you really forgive me--you'd have to--"

"I DID--then."

"No--not really--or you wouldn't have said you couldn't see me any more."

"That wasn't the reason." The voice was very low.

"Mary," he said, even more tremulously than before, "I can't--you COULDN'T mean it was because--you can't mean it was because you--care?"

There was no answer.

"Mary?" he called, huskily. "If you mean THAT--you'd let me see you--wouldn't you?"

And now the voice was so low he could not be sure it spoke at all, but if it did, the words were, "Yes, Bibbs--dear."

But the voice was not in the instrument--it was so gentle and so light, so almost nothing, it seemed to be made of air--and it came from the air.

Slowly and incredulously he turned--and glory fell upon his s.h.i.+ning eyes. The door of his father's room had opened.

Mary stood upon the threshold.

THE END