In Secret

Finally he ventured to rise and move cautiously to his door, and he made not the slightest sound in opening it, but her door opened instantly, and she stood there confronting him, an ulster buttoned over her nightdress.

"What is the matter?" she said gently.

"Nothing."

"Are you having a bad night?"

"I'm all right. I wish you wouldn't constitute yourself my nurse, servant, mentor, guardian, keeper, and personal factotum!" Sudden rage left him inarticulate, and he shot an ugly look at her. "Can't you let me alone?" he snarled.

"You poor boy," she said under her breath.

"Don't talk like that! Damnation! I--I can't stand much more--I can't stand it, I tell you!"

"Yes, you can, and you will. And I don't mind what you say to me." His malignant expression altered.

"Do you know," he said, in a cool and evil voice, "that I may stop SAYING things and take to DOING them?"

"Would you hurt me physically? Are you really as sick as that?"

"Not yet.... How do I know?" Suddenly he felt tired and leaned against the doorway, covering his dulling eyes with his right forearm. But his hand was now clenched convulsively.

"Could you lie down? I'll talk to you," she whispered. "I'll see you through."

"I can't--endure--this tension," he muttered. "For God's sake let me go!"

"Where?"

"You know."

"Yes.... But it won't do. We must carry on, you and I."

"If you--knew--"

"I do know! When these crises come try to fix your mind on what you have become."

"Yes.... A hell of a soldier. Do you really believe that my country needs a thing like me?" She stood looking at him in silence--knowing that he was in a torment of some terrible sort. His eyes were still covered by his arm. On his boyish brow the blonde-brown hair had become damp.

She went across and passed her arm through his. His hand rested, fell to his side, but he suffered her to guide him through the corridors toward a far bluish spark that seemed as distant as Venus, the star.

They walked very slowly for a while on deck, encountering now and then the shadowy forms of officers and crew. The personnel of the several hospital units in transit were long ago in bed below.

Once he said: "You know, Miss Erith, it is not I who behaves like a scoundrel to you."

"I know," she said with a dauntless smile.

"Because," he went on, searching painfully for thought as well as words, "I'm not really a brute--was not always a blackguard--"

"Do you suppose for one moment that I blame a man who has been irresponsible through no fault of his, and who has made the fight and has won back to sanity?"