He sprang to his feet, but her hands clung to his and she rose with him.
"Oh, but I can't let you go like this," she pleaded, her eyes looking deep into his, her face lifted with the bright tears on her cheeks. "I can't let you go. You have just told me that you love me, and we must have a little time to get acquainted before you go. I—oh—I think I must have been loving you, too, all this time." Her own glance dropped shyly. "There was no one else ever who seemed to me as wonderful as you were, even when I was a little girl. Please don't go yet. We must have more time to get our hearts acquainted."
He looked down at her, his very soul in his eyes, his face deeply stirred, and then suddenly his arms were about her and he drew her close, his face against her tear-wet cheek, his lips upon hers.
"Darling!" he breathed softly.
She was clinging to him now, trembling in his arms.
"Darling, if I had dreamed it could be like this!"
Again he held her close.
"God forgive me! I've got to leave you. I'm a soldier under orders, you know."
"Yes, I know," she said softly. "I must not keep you. But oh, I wish you had come sooner, so that we might have had a little time together."
"I'm afraid my coming has only made you unhappy!"
"No, don't say that! It is a beautiful happiness just to know what you have told me. And you know—I shall be praying, too. May God take care of you and keep you and bring you back!"
He took her in his arms again, and their farewell kiss was a precious one to remember. And then suddenly a clock above the stairs with a silvery chime told the hour, and he sprang away.
"I must go at once!" he said.
"Yes, of course," gasped the girl sorrowfully.
It was incredible how hard it was to separate when they had only just come together. It was breathtaking.
Hand in hand they went out to the hall, to the front door, trying to say many last things for which there wasn't time, things that had just begun to crowd to their attention.
"But you will write to me?" said Blythe, lifting pleading eyes. "You will write at once?"
He looked at her with a sudden light in his eyes.
"Oh, may I do that?" he asked, as if it was more than he had dared to hope. "I hadn't planned to hang on to your life. I don't want to hinder you in any way. I want you to have a happy time, and—to—well, forget me. Think of me just as somebody who has gone out of your life. I mean it. I don't want the thought of me and of what I have said to hinder you from having friends and going places. I want you to be your dear happy self, just as you have been all through the years before you knew I cared. That will be the best way to keep me happy and give me courage to go through with what I have undertaken. I mean it."
Her hands quivered in his and clung more closely.
"How could you think I could forget you and go on being happy? You have told me that you love me, and it has—well, just crowned my life!" She looked up at him with a kind of radiance in her face that beamed on his heart like a ray of sunshine and warmed him through and through. He had been so humble about telling her, that he hadn't dreamed it would bring this response. It thrilled him indescribably.
"Darling!" he breathed softly and caught her to him again, holding her close.
Then upstairs another clock with a silvery voice chimed a belated warning, and they sprang apart.
"You must go!" It was the girl who said the word. "You mustn't let me make you late. And—how can I write to you? We have so much to say to one another."
"Oh, yes, I forgot!"
He plunged his hand into his pocket and brought out a card.
"A letter sent to this address will be forwarded to me wherever I am. Good-bye, my precious one! You have given me great joy by the way you have received me, and you haven't any idea how hard it is for me to leave you now."
He touched his lips reverently to her brow and then dashed out the door.
She watched him flashing down the street, her heart on fire with joy and sorrow. Joy that he loved her, sorrow that he must go away into terrible danger, or what he was supposed to be going to do, but he had spoken as if it were plenty. "Probable death!" he had said, and yet even that terrible prospect had not been able to still the joy that was in her heart. Whatever came, he was hers to love, she was his! Whatever came there was this, and for the present she could only be glad. By and by she knew that anxiety would come, and fear, and anguish perhaps, but still, he would be hers.
How strange that she should feel this way about that boy with whom she had scarcely had a speaking acquaintance. A word, a look, a hovering smile, all the most formal, had been their intercourse thus far. And yet he had loved her so that he could not go away into possible death without telling her how he felt. And she had loved him well enough to recognize it at once, though she had never used that word even in her thoughts with regard to him. It seemed as if it were something that God had handed to her as a surprise. Something He had been planning for her all through her life, and she hugged the thought to her heart that she had always admired him, even when he was a little boy. He had beautiful, intelligent eyes that always seemed to understand, a tumble of dark curly hair, and a way of disappearing into thin air as soon as the business of school was over for the day. He never seemed to take part in social affairs of the school—he just vanished. But his location in the room had always seemed to Blythe like a light for the whole class. Something clear and dependable to give their grade tone. It had been that way right along through the grades.
Just once in those years they had stood side by side at the blackboard working out a problem, their chalk clicking, tapping along almost in unison, driven by sharp brains, quick fingers—and they had whirled around with lifted hands almost at the same instant, the only two in the class that had finished. They had given one another a quick look, a flashing smile, and that smile and look had lingered in Blythe's memory like a pleasant thing, and helped to complete the picture she had of that wise young scholar with a well-controlled twinkle of merriment in his eyes.
The memory flashed at her now as she stood on the steps of her father's house and watched him stride down the driveway. She followed down to the end of the drive and watched him away down the sidewalk. Then she saw the bus coming. Was he going to make it? She held her breath to watch. Oh, had she made him late to something most important? That would be an unhappy thing to remember, if she had.
Then she saw him swing on inside the door just as it was about to close. Was he looking back? He was too far away for her to see.
But there were footsteps. Was someone coming? There were also tears on the verge of arrival. She turned like a flash, hurried up to the house, and vanished inside just as one of her friends reached the gateway and called out to her. But she was gone. She couldn't, couldn't talk to anyone now. Not after what had happened. Idle chatter of friends and neighbors would put a blur over the precious thoughts that were in her heart, if she allowed them to come now, before they were firmly fixed in memory. The morning was too rare and precious to be mingled with the commonplaces of life. She must get away by herself and savor this wonderful thing that had come to her.
So Blythe sped to her room and locked her door on the world that might have interfered.
For a moment she paused with her hands spread behind her on the closed door and looked about her. It was the same room it had been a few minutes before. There lay her coat and hat across the chair, just where she had dropped them when Susan told her she had a caller. There on the bureau lay her handbag. She had been all ready to go down to that Red Cross class, and of course she ought to be going at once. But she couldn't just walk out and go down to sew, until she had a chance to catch her breath and realize what had happened. Anyway, there were women enough there to run the class without her. It would be all right for her to wait just a few minutes and get her poise again. If she went down at once there would