"Alice doesn't disappoint," she went on, the words put upon her lips.
"I may, I shall. I already have, remember. This is your night, Gilbert,
not mine, and whichever step we decide to take matters more to you than
to me. Let it be the right one. Let it be the best for you."
But he made a wild sweeping gesture. His patience was running out.
"Nothing is best for me if you're not in it. I tell you you've got me,
whatever you are. You have your choice. Make it, make it. The night
won't last for ever."
Once more she listened for the breaking twig and the light step. There
was nothing but the sound of the crickets and the frogs. Martin had
forgotten. He had heard, she was sure of that, but he didn't care.
Nature had its hand upon her arm, but she pushed it away. Her choice
was easy, because she wouldn't forget. She would be true to Martin.
"I've made my choice," she said.
"Joan, Joan--what is it?"
"I don't love you."
He went up to her, with his old note of supplication. "But I can teach
you, Joan, I can teach you, my dear."
"No. Never. I love Martin. I always have and always shall."
"Oh, my God," he said.
"That's the truth.... Please be quick. I'm very tired!" She drew
herself up like a young lily.
For a moment he stood irresolute, swaying. Everything seemed to be
running past him. He was spinning like a top. He had hoped against
hope, during her silence and her argument. But now to be told not only
that she would never love him but that she loved another man....
He staggered across the room to the sideboard, opened the drawer, and
the thing glistened in his hand.
Joan was as cold as ice. "I will be true," she whispered to herself. "I
will be true. Martin, oh, Martin."
With a superhuman effort Gilbert caught hold of himself. The cold thing
in his hand helped him to this. His mouth became firm again and his
face gentle and tender. And he stood up with renewed dignity and the
old strange look of exaltation. "I claim you then," he said. "I claim
you, Joan. Here, on this earth, we have both made mistakes. I with
Alice. You with Martin Gray. In the next life, whatever it may be, we
will begin again together. I will teach you from the beginning. Death
and the Great Emotion. It will be very beautiful. Shut your eyes, my
sweet, and we will take the little step together." The thing glistened
in his grasp.
And Joan shut her eyes with her hands to her breast. "I love you,
Martin," she whispered. "I love you. I will wait until you come."
And Gilbert cried out, in a loud ringing voice, "Eternity, oh, God!"
and raised his hand.
There was a crash, a ripping of window screen. Coatless, hatless, his
shirt gaping at the neck, his deep chest heaving, Martin swept into the
room like a storm, flung himself in front of Joan, staggered as the
bullet hit him, cried out her name, crumpled into a heap at her feet.
And an instant later lay beneath the sweet burden of the girl whose
call he had answered once again and to whom life broke like a glass
ball at the sight of him and let her through into space.
V
"You may go in," said the doctor.
And Joan, whiter than a lily, rose from the corner in which she had
been crouching through all the hours of the night and went to the
doorway of the room to which Martin had been carried by the Nice Boy
and Gilbert, the man who had been shocked back to sanity.
On a narrow bed, near a window through which a flood of sunlight
poured, lay Martin from whom Death had turned away,--honest, normal,
muscular, reliable Martin, the bullet no longer in his shoulder. His
eyes, eager and wistful, lit up as he saw her standing there and the
brown hand that was outside the covers opened with a sort of quiver.
With a rush Joan went forward, slipped down on her knees at the side of
the bed, broke into a passion of weeping and pressed her lips to that
outstretched hand.
Making no bones about it, being very young and very badly hurt, Martin
cried too, and their tears washed the bridge away and the barriers and
misunderstandings and criss-crosses that had sprung up between them
during all those adolescent months.
"Martin, Martin, it was all my fault."
"No, it wasn't, Joany. It was mine. I wasn't merely your pal, ever. I
loved and adored you from the very second that I found you out on the
hill. You thought it was a game, but it wasn't. It was the real thing,
and I was afraid to say so."
She crept a little nearer and put her head on his chest. "I was all
wrong, Marty, from the start. I was a fool and a cheat, and you and
Gilbert and Alice have paid my bill. I've sent Gilbert back to Alice,
and they'll forget, but it will take me all my life to earn my way back
to you." She flung her arm across his body, and her tears fell on his
face.
"Oh, God," he cried out, "don't you understand that I love you, Joany?
Send all your bills to me. They're mine, because I'm yours, my baby,
just all yours. You were so young and you had to work it off. I knew
all that and waited. Didn't you know me well enough to be dead sure
that I would wait?"
The burden on her shoulders fell with a crash, and with a great cry of
pent-up gratitude and joy her lips went down to his lips.
But the doctor was not so old that he had forgotten love and youth, and
he left those two young clinging things alone again and went back into
the sun.