Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/385

 "Keep still a moment,—and your head down. I heard only five minutes ago."

She felt him trembling, and her eyelids and lips quivered, but when she spoke her voice was very steady.

"I'm different—now. We will go to him as soon as you feel ready. There must be some hope."

Sorrell's figure straightened. There was an almost childish pleading in his eyes.

"He won't give up his arm."

"And you?"

"I? Oh,—I said the same. I don't think I knew. But if there is a chance."

She stood there, with deep eyes looking down into the heart of life, her hand still upon his shoulder.

"Does Kit want to live? But—of course. And the arm. We want him to live. If it matters so much to you—and to me."

Sorrell looked upwards at her white and urgent face.

"To you?"

"Yes. If I can help, O—yes—everything. I'll give everything. Let's go. Do you feel able?"

He rose; she slipped her hand under his arm, and her strong young body made his stooping figure look very old. But her strength was gentle. If she bent towards him compassionately it was towards a splendid veteran.

What two people say or do not say at such a moment in their lives is written in the sealed books of the gods. A few disjointed words, a meeting of the hands, a stripping off of all pretence, a throwing of every little personal bauble into the great furnace. So, Molly Pentreath came out from Christopher Sorrell's room with a shine upon her face, the woman eternally surrendering, and becoming sacred by reason of her surrender.

She met the group of men, Sorrell, old Gaunt, Kennard, Orange, and one or two more. Their eyes waited upon her. She had gone in to persuade a man to lose his arm and live, or take his last chance of living. She came out to them with wet and shining eyes that smiled.