Yet, after those drowsy, pain-streaked nights, when the sober light of dawn crept in at the windows, then, morning after morning, Michael knew that the inward compulsion was in no way weakened by all the reasons that he had urged. It remained ruthless and tender, a still small voice that was heard after the whirlwind and the fire. For the very reason why he longed to spare Sylvia this knowledge, namely, that they loved each other, was precisely the reason why he could not spare her. Yet it seemed so wanton, so useless, so unreasonable to tell her, so laden with a risk both for him and her that no standard could measure. But he no more contemplated--except in vain imagination--making up some ingenious story of this kind which would account for his knowledge of Hermann's death than he contemplated keeping silence altogether.
It was not possible for him not to tell her everything, though, when he pictured himself doing so, he found himself faced by what seemed an inevitable impossibility. Though he did not see how his lips could frame the words, he knew they had to. Yet he could not but remember how mere reports in the paper, stories of German cruelty and what not, had overclouded the serenity of their love.
What would happen when this news, no report or hearsay, came to her?
He had not heard her foot on the stairs, nor did she wait for his servant to announce her; but, a little before her appointed time, she burst in upon him midway between smiles and tears, all tenderness.
"Michael, my dear, my dear," she cried, "what a morning for me!
For the first time to-day when I woke, I forgot about the war. And your poor arm? How goes it? Oh, I will take care, but I must and will have you in my arms."He had risen to greet her, and softly and gently she put her arms round his neck, drawing his head to her.
"Oh, my Michael!" she whispered. "You've come back to me. Lieber Gott, how I have longed for you!""Lieber Gott!" When last had he heard those words? He had to tell her. He would tell her in a minute or two. Perhaps she would never hold him like that again. He could not part with her at the very moment he had got her.
"You look ever so well, Michael," she said, "in spite of your wound. You're so brown and lean and strong. And oh, how I have wanted you! I never knew how much till you went away."Looking at her, feeling her arms round him, Michael felt that what he had to say was beyond the power of his lips to utter. And yet, here in her presence, the absolute necessity of telling her climbed like some peak into the ample sunrise far above the darkness and the mists that hung low about it.
"And what lots you must have to tell me," she said. "I want to hear all--all."Suddenly Michael put up his left hand and took away from his neck the arm that encircled it. But he did not let go of it. He held it in his hand.
"I have to tell you one thing at once," he said. She looked at him, and the smile that burned in her eyes was extinguished. From his gesture, from his tone, she knew that he spoke of something as serious as their love.
"What is it?" she said. "Tell me, then."He did not falter, but looked her full in the face. There was no breaking it to her, or letting her go through the gathering suspense of guessing.
"It concerns Hermann," he said. "It concerns Hermann and me. The last morning that I was in the trenches, there was an attack at dawn from the German lines. They tried to rush our trench in the dark. Hermann led them. He got right up to the trench. And Ishot him. I did not know, thank God!"
Suddenly Michael could not bear to look at her any more. He put his arm on the table by him and, leaning his head on it, covering his eyes he went on. But his voice, up till now quite steady, faltered and failed, as the sobs gathered in his throat.
"He fell across the parapet close to me, "he said. . . . "I lifted him somehow into our trench. . . . I was wounded, then. . . . He lay at the bottom of the trench, Sylvia. . . . And I would to God it had been I who lay there. . . . Because I loved him. . . .
Just at the end he opened his eyes, and saw me, and knew me. And he said--oh, Sylvia, Sylvia!--he said 'Lieber Gott, Michael. Good morning, old boy.' And then he died. . . . I have told you."And at that Michael broke down utterly and completely for the first time since the morning of which he spoke, and sobbed his heart out, while, unseen to him, Sylvia sat with hands clasped together and stretched towards him. Just for a little she let him weep his fill, but her yearning for him would not be withstood. She knew why he had told her, her whole heart spoke of the hugeness of it.
Then once more she laid her arm on his neck.
"Michael, my heart!" she said.
End
