Now Mother Beckett must be crying tears of joy in the
arms of her son, Father Beckett gazing at the blessed sight, speechless
with ecstasy!
What should I be doing at this moment, if I had yielded to their wish
and stopped downstairs with them? Just how far would Jim have gone in
keeping up the tragic farce? Would he have kissed me? Would he----?
The vision was so blazing bright that I covered my eyes to shut it out.
Not that I hated it. Oh no, I loved it too well!
So, for a while, I stood, my hands pressed over my eyes, my ears
strained to catch distant sounds--yet wishing not to hear. Suddenly,
close by, there came the click of a latch. My hands dropped like broken
clock weights. I opened my eyes. Jim Beckett was in the room, and the
door was shut.
CHAPTER XXXIII
I stared, fascinated. Here was Jim-of-the-rose-arbour, and a new
Jim-of-the-war--a browner, thinner, sterner Jim, a Jim that looked at me
with a look I could not read. It may have been cruel, but it was not
cold, and it pierced like a hot sword-blade through my flesh into my
soul.
"_You_--after all!" he said. The remembered voice I had so often heard
in dreams, struck on my nerves like a hand on the strings of a harp. I
felt the vibration thrill through me.
"Yes--it's I." The answer came in a whisper from dry lips. "I'm sorry!"
"What are you sorry for? Because you are you?"
"It wouldn't be--_quite_ so horrible if--I'd been a stranger.
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