oy who fought for us. Let me marry
that boy, Wheeler. Let his light go out in happiness. Wheeler? Please,
Wheeler?" He would not meet her eyes. "Wheeler?"

"Go to it, Hester," he said, coughing about in his throat and rising to
walk away. "Bring him here and give him the fat of the land. You can
count on me to keep out of the way. Go to it," he repeated.

And so they were married, Hester holding his hand beside the hospital
cot, the man nurse and doctor standing by, and the chaplain incanting
the immemorial words. A bar of sunshine lay across the bed, and Gerald
pronounced each "I will" in a lifted voice that carried to the four
corners of the little room. She was allowed to stay that night past
hospital hours, and they talked with the dusk flowing over them.

"Hester, Hester," he said, "I should have had the strength to hold out
against your making this terrible sacrifice."

"It's the happiest hour of my life," she said, kissing him.

"I feel well enough to get up now, sweetheart."

"Gerald, don't force. You've weeks ahead before you are ready for that."

"But to-morrow, dear, home! In whose car are you calling for me
to-morrow to take me _home_?"

"In a friend's, dearest."

"Won't I be crowding up our little apartment? Describe it again to me,
dearest--our _home_."

"It's so little, Gerald. Three rooms and the littlest, babiest kitchen.
When you're once up, I'll teach its every corner to you."

Tears seeped through the line where his lids had been, and it was almost
more than she could bear.

"I'll make it up to you, though, Hester. I know I should have been
strong enough to hold out against your marrying me, but I'll make it up.
I've a great scheme; a sort of braille system of accountancy--"

"Please, Gerald--not now!"

"If only, Hester, I felt easier about the finances. Will your savings
stand the strain? Your staying at home from your work this way--and then
me--"

"Gerald dear, I've told you so often--I've saved more than we need."

"My girl!"

"My dear, my dear!" she said.

* * * * *

They moved him with hardly a jar in an army ambulance, and with the
yellow limousine riding alongside to be of possible aid, and she had the
bed stripped of its laces and cool with linen for him, and he sighed out
when they placed him on it and would not let go her hand.

"What a feeling of space for so little a room!"

"It's the open windows, love."

He lay back tiredly.