Do I not understand?" he
repeated. "Have I not understood all along? It is true; outwardly as
regards this work you have been--the Incident."
As he paused, she made a slight gesture with one hand as though she
did not care for what he was saying and brushed away the fragile web
of his words from before her eyes--eyes fixed on larger things lying
clear before her in life's distance.
He went quickly on with deepening emphasis:
"But, comrade of all these years, battler with me for life's
victories, did you think you were never to know? Did you believe I was
never to explain? You had only one more day to wait! If patience, if
faith, could only have lasted another twenty-four hours--until
Christmas Eve!"
It was the first time for nearly a year that the sound of those words
had been heard in that house. He bent earnestly over toward her; he
leaned heavily forward with his hands on his knees and searched her
features with loyal chiding.
"Has not Christmas Eve its mysteries?" he asked, "its secrets for you
and me? Think of Christmas Eve for you and me! Remember!"
Slowly as in a windless woods on a winter day a smoke from a
woodchopper's smouldering fire will wander off and wind itself about
the hidden life-buds of a young tree, muffling it while the atmosphere
near by is clear, there now floated into the room to her the tender
haze of old pledges and vows and of things unutterably sacred.
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