Then a thing, which would have been amusing
if it had not been so deeply human, happened. She and John Sibley went
out of the house together into the moonlit night, and the reaction seized
them both at the same moment. She gave a gulp and burst into tears, and
he, though as tall as Crozier, also broke down, and they sat on the stump
of a tree together, her hand in his, and cried like two children.
"Never since I was a little runt--did I--never cried in thirty years--
and here I am-leaking like a pail!" Thus spoke John Sibley in gasps and
squeezing Kitty's hand all the time unconsciously, but spontaneously, and
as part of what he felt. He would not, however, have dared to hold her
hand on any other occasion, while always wanting to hold it, and wanting
her also to share his not wholly reputed, though far from precarious,
existence. He had never got so far as to tell her that; but if she had
understanding she would realise after to-night what he had in his mind.
She, feeling her arm thrill with the magnetism of his very vital palm,
had her turn at explanation. "I wouldn't have broke down myself--it was
all your fault," she said. "I saw it--yes--in your face as we left the
house. I'm so glad it's over safe--no one belonging to him here, and not
knowing if he'd wake up alive or not--I just was swamped."
He took up the misty excuse and explanation. "I had a feeling for him
from the start; and then that Logan Trial to-day, and the way he talked
out straight, and told the truth to shame the devil--it's what does a man
good! And going bung over a horserace--that's what got me too, where I
was young and tender.
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