For a long time neither spoke, or moved. Then Hugh held out his arms,
and Helen came into them. And still neither spoke. The old clock ticked
the moments, and the beat of their hearts throbbed tremblingly.
At last they spoke, each at the same instant.
“Helen”—“Hugh.”
She lifted her hand from his shoulder, and fondled his face.
Of course, she spoke first, when either could speak beyond that first
syllable.
“Oh, my dear, my dear!” she said. “I thought you were never coming back
to me.”
He caught her hands and held them against his heart.
“I couldn’t come, Helen. You know that—not until I had made things
right.”
The glad blood rushed to her face. “Oh! Hugh,” she cried, “then you have
made things right, you have found out? I am so glad, so glad!”
“Why no, dear,” he faltered, “not yet. But that’s why I’ve come.”
She paled a little, but her voice and her eyes were brave. “It doesn’t
matter—nothing matters, now that you have come back to me. Oh, I’m so
glad—I’ve missed you so, Hugh—I’ve missed you so”—the bravery had
died in a little girlish wail.
“My dear”—it was all he could say.
“Where have you been all these months?” she asked, pushing him to a
chair, and kneeling beside him, her arms on his knee.
“When I left here that night”—he laid a hand on her hair—“and had to
give up my commission, I went straight to a recruiting office—and
joined up as a private, under another name.”
“And now,” she said with a soft laugh, laying her cheek against the
stripes on his sleeve, “you’re a sergeant. You have been to the front?”
The young voice was very proud as she said it. Her man had given battle.
“I went almost at once.”
“And I never knew.” How much she had missed!
“It wasn’t until a few weeks ago I learned of Uncle Dick’s death,” Hugh
said gently.
“He died that night, Hugh,” Helen whispered—“just there—in the hall.”
“Yes—I know,” he nodded, his arm on her shoulder. Neither said more for
a space. Presently he told her, “I’ve had luck out there. I have been
recommended for a commission.”
“I think I like this best,” the girl said, stroking his sleeve. “But
it’s splendid that you’ve won through the ranks. That’s the kind of
commission worth having—the only kind.”
“But I can’t accept it until I can tell them who I am. That’s why I got
leave—to come back and try and clear myself. I didn’t know until I
reached England that I had been published as a deserter—that there was
a warrant for my arrest.”
“You didn’t know that?” Helen said, in her surprise rising to her feet.
“No—Uncle Dick promised to arrange matters—he must have died before he
had the chance—of course he did—but I never thought of that. So now
I’ve got to clear my name—of two pretty black things—or give myself
up,” he said, rising and standing beside her, face to face.
She shuddered a little, and she could not keep all her anxiety out of
her voice.
“And you think you can clear yourself? You have some plan?”
“Not a plan exactly,” he shook his head gropingly, “only a vague sort
of—I don’t know what to call it.”
Helen was bitterly disappointed. “Why, what do you mean?” she asked
wistfully.
“Helen,” he said awkwardly, diffidently. “You mustn’t think me quite
mad—but I don’t know that I can make you understand—only—well—all
these months out there—I have been haunted by an idea—oh! Helen,
strange things have come to many of us out there—at night—in the
trenches—lying by our guns waiting—in the thick of the fight
even—things that will never be believed by those who didn’t see
them—never forgotten, or doubted again, by those who did. I don’t know
how it came to me—or when exactly—but somehow I came to believe that,
yes, to _know_ it, that, if I could come back to this room, I would find
something to prove my innocence. I don’t know how, I didn’t know how,
but the thing was so strong I couldn’t resist it.”
Helen Bransby’s heart stood still. Something fanned on her face. She
stood before Hugh almost transfixed. Slowly, reluctantly even, her eyes
left his face, and moved mechanically until they halted and rested on a
green-and-pink toy blinking in the sunset. Sunset was fast turning to
twilight. The room was flooded and curtained with shadows.
“I always felt,” Hugh continued, “that when I got to this room something
would come to me.” Then his manner changed abruptly, the scorn of the
modern man mocking and scoffing the embryo seer, and he said bitterly,
“I dare say I’ve been a fool—but it all seemed so real—so vivid—so
real.” His last words were plaintive with human longing and uncertainty.
“I know,” she smiled a little, but her voice was deeply earnest.
Hugh regarded her in amazement. “You know?” he said breathlessly,
catching her hand.
“Yes.” She seemed to find the rest difficult to say. He waited tensely,
and with a long intaking of breath she went on, “Hugh, did you ever
think where this feeling might come from?”
“Well—no,” he replied lamely, “how could I? It was an impression, I
dare say, just because this room was so much in my thoughts.”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Helen said staunchly. “Hugh, I have had this
feeling too.”
“You, Helen!”
“Yes. _I have it now_—strongly. For a long time I’ve felt that there
was something that I could do—something I must do—something that would
make things right for you.”
“But, my dear”—Hugh was frightened, anxious for her.
“That’s why I came down here a few days ago. Why I came to this room an
hour ago——” she hurried on—“all at once, in London, I knew that there
was something in this room that would clear you.”
Hugh was baffled—and strangely impressed. “That is curious,” he said
very slowly.
“Hugh,” she whispered clearly, “don’t you realize where this
feeling—that we both have—comes from?”
He shook his head slowly—puzzled—quite in the dark.
“Think!”
Again a slow shake of the head.
“Daddy—Daddy is trying to help us!”