Page:Arthur Stringer - The Under Groove.djvu/357

 "Give him time—give him time!" warned the guttural-voiced man.

"But you don't remember?" half-whispered the white-faced girl above me. Her mournful eyes looked down at me like stars out of an evening sky. They brought a sense of quiet and contentment to my troubled mind.

"Give him time!" explained the guttural voice, more gently than before.

Then I wondered why my hand that lay outside the coverlet was wet. I looked at it. They were tears. The girl leaning over the bed was crying, for some reason, against her will. I could feel her hand creep into mine.

Our two hands lay together, the one clutching and holding the other. I scarcely knew why, but it made me feel very happy. It made me hope for life again. It seemed to send a current of something warm and mysterious through all my body as I fell asleep. But I felt sorry I could not remember.