"'Where's the fiddle?' I says to him one day when I was feelin' social.

And then, all of a minute, I guessed why he wasn't patchin' up like what was his duty. You see, that b-blessed parapet hadn't had any more sense than to go and spoil his right arm for him--the one he fiddled with, see?"

(Here the Sergeant delivered one brick loaf instead of two sandwich ditto.)

"Well, they kept sayin' there weren't any reason he shouldn't mend up.

But he didn't. And one night--" the Sergeant pulled up the cart so quickly that Desire almost fell out of it. "You won't believe this part," he said in a kind of shamefaced way.

"Try me."

"Well then, one night he called to me in a kind of clear whisper.

'Bob!' he says, 'I've got my fiddle!'

"'Sure you have, old c.o.c.k,' says I.

"'And my arm's as good as ever,' says he.

"'Sure it is! Better,' says I.

"'Listen!' says he.

"And I listened and--but you won't believe this part--"

"I will."

"Well, I heared him playin'! Not loud--not very near but so clear not one of the littlest, tinkly notes was lost. I never heard playin' like that--no, mam! And the ward was still. I never heard the ward still, like that. I think I went to sleep listenin'. I don't know."

The Sergeant broke off here long enough to deliver several orders--all wrong. Desire waited quietly and presently he finished with a jerk.

"When I woke up in the mornin', I was feelin' fine--fine. The first thing I did was to look over to the next cot. But there was a screen around it.... I ain't told the story to his folks because he hasn't got any," he added after a pause. "And I kind of thought it mightn't comfort his fiancy any--it not bein' personal, so to speak."

Desire frankly wiped her eyes. (It was fortunate that no one saw her do this.)

"It's a beautiful story," she said.

"Well, if you think I ought to tell, I will. But if his fiancy says, 'Was there any message?' hadn't I best put in a little one--somethin'

comforting?"

"Oh--no."

"All right. Couldn't I just say that at the end he called out 'Amelia!'?"

"Oh, Mr. Timms!"

"Not quite playin' the game, eh? Well, then I won't. But it does seem kind of skimp like.... There's the doctor waitin' at the gate."

CHAPTER XXV

It seemed to Desire, waiting in the garden, that the Sergeant was taking an unnecessarily long time in telling his story. She had thought it best that he should be left alone to tell it, so the doctor had gone on to visit another patient, promising to call for her as he came back.

Desire waited. And, as she waited, she thought. And, as she thought, she questioned. What had Benis meant when he had said, in that whimsical way of his, "Well, my dear, it is your idea"? If he had not approved of it, why hadn't he said so? It had seemed such a sensible idea. An idea of which anyone might approve.... Why also had Sergeant Timms been so reluctant to approach Miss Martin with the bare (and, Desire thought, beautiful) truth? Because he feared it would rob her of an illusion? But illusions are surely something which people are better without?--aren't they?

The Sergeant came at last, twirling his cap and looking hot.

"Well?" asked Desire nervously.

"She'd like you to go in, Mrs. Spence, if you can spare the time. She took it quite quiet. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' says she. And never a question."

The two looked at each other and Desire saw her own doubt plainly reflected upon the honest gaze of Robert Timms.

"I'll go in," she said. "The doctor will take me home."

In the invalid's room there was only quietness. Miss Martin sat in her chair by the window; her plain, thin face had not sought to turn from the searching light. Desire felt her heart begin to beat with the beginnings of an understanding as new as it was revealing.

"Don't be sorry," Miss Martin's rea.s.surance was instant. "I am glad to know.... I always did know, anyway ... and it did not make any difference ... If you can understand."

Desire nodded. "He must have been very wonderful," she said. In that new and nameless understanding she forgot that only that morning she had referred to the dead musician as a "derelict" and "no good for anything."

"Yes," said the invalid musing. "Not quite like the rest of us. And I see now that he never would have been. I used to think--but the difference was too deep. It was fundamental.... I feel ... as if he knew it ... and just wandered on."

"But you?" Desire ventured this almost timidly. The quietness seemed to intensify in the room. Then the invalid's voice, serene, distant.

"I? ... There is no hurry.... He has his fiddle, you see...."

Miss Martin smiled and the smile held no bitterness. So might a mother have smiled over a thoughtless child who turns away from a love he is too young to value.

Desire was silent.

"I did not know love was like that," she said after a long pause. "But perhaps I do not know anything about love at all."

The older woman looked at her with quiet scrutiny.

"You will," she said.

After that they talked of other things until the doctor came to take Desire home.

"Queer thing," he said as he threw in the clutch, "I believe she looks a little better already. That was an excellent idea of yours."

"It was anything but an excellent idea." Desire's tone was taut with emotional reaction. "Fortunately, it did no harm. But I don't know what you were thinking of to allow it."

"Allow it?" In surprised injury.

Desire did not take up the challenge. She was looking, he thought, unusually excited. There was faint color on her cheek. Her hands, generally so quiet, clasped and unclasped her handbag with an irritating click. Being a wise man, Rogers waited until the clicking had subsided. Then, "What's the matter?" he asked mildly.

"John," said Desire, "do you know anything about love?"

"I see you do," she added as the car leapt forward, narrowly missing a surprised cow. "So perhaps you will laugh at my new wisdom. I learned something to-day."