Evelyn's room looked out on to the terrace, away from the direction of
the wind, and the nurse had just gone to the window to open it further,
for the room, warmed by the afternoon sun, was growing rather hot. But
just then he stirred with a more direct and conscious movement than he
had yet made, half-sat up in bed, and with both hands suddenly felt at
the bandages that swathed the upper part of his face. Then he spoke in
those quick, staccato tones that were so characteristic.
"What has happened?" he said. "Where am I? What's going on? Why can't I
see? Madge----" And then he stopped suddenly.
She bit her lip for a moment, and just paused, summoning up her strength
to bear what she knew was coming. Then she went quickly to the bedside
and took his hand away from his face.
"Yes, dearest, I am here," she said. "Lie quiet, won't you, and we will
talk."
The nurse had come back from the window, and also stood by the bed.
Madge spoke to her quickly and low.
"Leave us, please, nurse," she said. "We have got to talk privately. I
will call you if I want you."
She left the room; Evelyn had instinctively answered to Madge's voice,
and had sunk back again on his pillows, and slowly in the long silence
that followed, his mind began piecing things together, burrowing,
groping, feeling for the things that had made their mark on his brain,
but were remembered at present only dimly. The remembrance of some shock
came first to him, and some sudden, stinging pain; next the smell of
heather, warm and fragrant, and another bitter-tasting smell, the smell
of blood. He put out his hand, and felt fumblingly over the clothes.
"Madge, are you still there?" he said quickly.
She took his hand.
"Yes, dear, sitting by you," she said. "I shall always be here whenever
you want me."
Then came the staccato voice again.
"But why can't I see you?" he asked. "What's this over my face?"
Again she gently pulled back his other hand, which was feeling the
bandages with quick, hovering movements like the antennæ of some insect.
"You were hurt, dear, you know," she said. "They had to bandage your
face, over your forehead and your eyes."
Again there was silence; his mind was beginning to move more quickly,
remembrance was pouring in from all sides.
"It was at Glen--Glen something, where we came by a night train, and you
flirted with a valet," he said.
"Yes, dear, Glen Callan," said Madge quietly. But her eyes yearned and
devoured him: all her heart was ready now, when the time came, to spring
towards him, enfolding him with love.
But his voice was fretful rather and irritable, from shock and
suffering.
"Yes, Glen Callan, of course," he said. "I said Glen Callan, didn't I?
We are there, still, I suppose. Yes? And you went fishing in the
morning, and I went shooting. Shooting?" he repeated.
All that Madge had ever felt before in her life grew dim in the
intensity of this. The moment was close now, but somehow she no longer
feared it. Fear could not live in these high altitudes: it died like
some fever-germ.
"Yes, dear, you went shooting," she said. "We were to meet at lunch, you
know. But just before lunch there was an accident. You were shot, shot
in the face."
His hands grew restless again, and he shifted backwards and forwards in
bed.
"Ah, yes," he said, "that is just what I could not remember. I was
shot--yes, yes: I remember how it stung, but it didn't hurt very much.
Then I fell down in the heather: I can't think why, but I stumbled--I
couldn't see. I was bleeding, too; the heather was warm and
sweet-smelling, but there was blood, too, that tasted so
horrible--like--like blood, there is nothing--all over my face. And
then--well, what then?"
"We brought you back, dear," said she, "and you had an operation. They
had to extract the shot. It was all done very satisfactorily: you are
going on very well."
Then all the nervous trembling in Evelyn's hands and the quick twitching
of his body ceased, and he lay quite still a moment, gathering himself
together to hear.
"Madge," he said, speaking more slowly, "will you please tell me all? I
don't think you have told me all yet. I want to hear it, for I feel
there is more yet. I was shot: that is all I know, and am lying here
with a bandaged face. Well?"
Madge's voice did not falter; that love and pity which possessed her had
for this moment anyhow complete mastery over the frailness and cowardice
of the mere flesh. She just took hold of both his hands, clasping them
tightly in her's, and spoke.
"You were shot all over the upper part of your face," she said.
"You----"
But he interrupted her.
"Who shot me?" he asked.
"Guy Ellington," she said. "The shot ricocheted off a rock and hit you.
It was not his fault."
"By Gad, poor devil!" said Evelyn.
"Yes, dear; I wrote to him just now, saying just that, how sorry I was
for him and how sorry you would be when you knew. You--you were shot
very badly, dear Evelyn. You were shot in the eyes, in both eyes----"
Again there was silence. Then he spoke hoarsely:
"Do you mean that, all that?" he said.
"Yes, dear; all that. And I had better say it. You are blind, Evelyn."
Then deep down from the very heart of her came the next words which
spoke themselves.
"I wish I could have died instead," she said.
He lay long absolutely motionless; there was no quiver of any kind on
the corners of his mouth to show that he even understood. But she knew
he understood, it was because he understood that he lay like that.
At last he spoke again, and the sorrow and anguish in his voice was
still comfort to her beyond all price.
"So I shall never see you again," he said.
Then she bent over the bed, and kissed him on the mouth.
"But never have I been so utterly yours as I am now!" she said, her
voice still strong and unwavering. "And, oh, how it fed my heart to know
what your first thought was, my darling. I think it would have broken if
it had been anything else!"
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