Page:A Bullet For Cinderella, John D. MacDonald (1955).pdf/163

160 out loud about what I could find to do in Hillston. I still had seven hundred dollars left. I was careful not to ask questions. I did not want it to seem to her as though I were angling for a response.

She lay with her face turned toward the wall. For all I knew she could be asleep. And then suddenly, surprisingly, her hand came timidly from the cover of the hospital blanket. It reached blindly toward me and I took her hand in both of mine. She squeezed my hand hard once and then let her hand lie in mine.

That was the sign. That was enough. The rest of it would come. Now it was just a matter of time. There would be a day when there would be laughter, when she would walk again in that proud way of hers. All this would fade and it would be right for her and for me. We both had a lot of forgetting to do, and we could do it better together. This was the woman I wanted. I could never be driven away.

This was treasure.