Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/282

262 suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a battle lost. Jerome turned from the picture to the man himself, and had his own surprise. Marshby was transfigured. He breathed humility and hope. He stirred at Winner's motion.

"Am I"—he glowed—"could I have looked like that?" Then in the poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to Mary:

"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last night."

He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he turned away and walked with the soldier's step home through the garden. Jerome could not look at her. He began moving back the picture.

"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning."

Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders. Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke like her lips.

"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword. It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he will fight. That's the glory of it!"