The Hermit of Far End Part 67

The eager, boyish face on the pillow flushed a little as they entered.

"Mother has told me everything," he said simply, going straight to the point. "It's--it's been rather a facer."

Maurice pointed to the narrow ribbon--the white, purple, white of the Military Cross--upon the breast of the khaki tunic flung across a chair-back--a rather disheveled tunic, rescued with other odds and ends from the wreckage of Tim's room at Sunnyside.

"It needn't be, Tim," he said, "with that to your credit."

Tim's eyes glowed.

"That's just it--that's what I wanted to see you for," he said. "I hope you won't think it cheek," he went on rather shyly, "but I wanted you to know that--that what you did for my mother--a.s.suming the disgrace, I mean, that wasn't yours--hasn't been all wasted. What little I've done--well, it would never have been done had I known what I know now."

"I think it would," Maurice dissented quietly.

Tim shook his head.

"No. Had my father been cas.h.i.+ered--for cowardice"--he stumbled a little over the words--"the knowledge of it would have knocked all the initiative out of me. I should have been afraid of showing the white feather. . . . The fear of being afraid would have been always at the back of me." He paused, then went on quickly: "And I think it would have been the same with Dad. It--it would have broken him. He could never have fought as he did with that behind him. You've . . . you've given two men to the country. . . ."

He broke off, boyishly embarra.s.sed, a little overwhelmed by his own big thoughts.

And suddenly to Maurice, all that had been dark and obscure grew clear in the white s.h.i.+ning of the light that gleamed down the track of those lost years.

A beautiful and ordered issue was revealed. Out of the ruin and bleak suffering of the past had sprung the flaming splendour of heroic life and death--a glory of achievement that, but for those arid years of silence, had been thwarted and frustrated by the deadening knowledge of the truth.

Kindling to the recognition of new and wonderful significances, his eyes sought those of the woman who loved him, and in their quiet radiance he read that she, too, had understood.

For her, as for him, the dark places had been made light, and with quickened vision she perceived, in all that had befallen, the fulfilling of the Divine law.

"Sara----"

Her hands went out to him, and the grave happiness deepened in her eyes.

"Oh, my dear, no love--no sacrifice is ever wasted!"

She spoke very simply, very confidently.