The Seventh Noon Part 52

The girl's cheeks grew scarlet.

"The shame of what I told him yesterday!"

"Was it not a bit brave of him to turn away from you?"

"He should have explained to me at that time why he was going. He needed me then."

"Do you not suppose that he knew it? Do you not suppose that it took the strength of a dozen men to go alone to what he thought was waiting for him?"

"I know nothing."

"And yet you saw his eyes as he stood before you then? And you saw his eyes as he left you five minutes ago?"

"I won't see. I can't risk--again!"

"Yet you love him?"

Once again the flaming scarlet in her cheeks. Her lips trembled. She turned away from the mirror.

"I said nothing of love," she insisted.

"Yet you love him?"

"Why did he do it?" she moaned.

"Yet you love him?"

"He did so bravely--he spoke so bravely, yet--"

"He learned. If, of all the world of men, you were to choose one to stand by your side when hardest pressed, whom would you choose?"

"I would choose him," answered the girl without hesitation.

"Why?"

"Because--"

"After all, is n't that enough? You would trust him to fight an eternity as he has fought for you these few days. Twice he staked his life for you--once his good name."

"But he thought he was soon to die."

"All the more precious the time that was left."

Her eyes brightened.

"Yes. Yes. I had not thought of that."

"Yet he did this and further risked what was left to save an unknown messenger boy."

"Oh, he did well!"

"Then he came to you like a man and told what you might never have discovered, just because he wished to stand clean before you."

"Yes," she breathed.

"Why did he do that?" demanded her reflection.

"I--I don't know."

"Why did he do that?"

"Because--"

"After all, isn't that enough?"

"But he said nothing. If only he had turned back!"

"What right had he to say the thing you wish? If he had been less a man he _would_ have turned back."

"Where has he gone? What is he going to do?"

"Why don't you find out?"

"It would be unmaidenly."

"Yes, and very womanly. Do you owe him nothing?"

"I owe him everything."

"Then--"

"I must send Ben to find him. I must--oh, but I need n't do anything more?"

"No. Nothing more."

Her heart pounded in her throat in her eagerness to finish her toilet.

Her fingers were so light that she could scarcely hold her comb. She hurried into a fresh gown and then down-stairs where she found Ben anxiously pacing the library. He appeared greatly agitated--anchorless.

"Ben," she began, "I had no right to allow Peter Donaldson to go away as I did."

"Little sister," he demanded, "was he unkind to you?"

"No. No," she broke in eagerly, "he was most generous with me. But for the moment I could n't see it. It was my fault that he went."

"But what was the cause of it?" he insisted, puzzled and dazed by the whole episode.

"It was nothing that counts now. I want you to promise me, Ben, that you will never refer to it, that you will never permit him to tell you of it."

His face cleared.