"It is horrible!" was all she answered and looked about her with a
shiver.
"Ah, the place frightens you! Well," he laughed, reassuringly, "it
frightened me at first. But for the thought of you, dearest, to
comfort--"
She stepped past him and opened the door. For a moment a wild notion
seized him that she was escaping, and he put out an imploring hand;
but he saw that, with her hand on the jamb, she was listening, and he,
too, listened. The voices in the Convalescent Ward came up to them,
scarcely muffled, through the low passage, and with them a cackling
laugh. Then he understood.
Their eyes met. He bowed his head.
"Nevertheless, I have suffered."
He said it humbly, after many seconds, and in a voice so low that it
seemed a second or two before she heard. For the first time she put
out a hand and touched his sleeve.
"Yes, you have suffered, and for me. Let me go on believing that. You
did a noble thing, and I shall try to remember you by it--to remember
that you were capable of it. 'It was for my sake,' I shall say, and
then I shall be proud. Oh, yes, sometimes I shall be very proud! But
in love--"
Her voice faltered, and he looked up sharply.
"In love"--she smiled, but passing faintly--"it's the little things,
is it not? It's the little things that count."
She touched his sleeve again, and passed into the room, leaving him
there at a standstill, as Endymion and the Commandant came round the
corner at the far end of the corridor.
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