His face lighted: her cheery voice sounded like a welcome ringing through his future years. It was a good omen, coming from her whom he had wronged.
"Are you going now, Gaunt?" asked Palmer, seeing him button his thin coat. "Take my blanket,--nay, you shall. As soon as I am strong enough, I'll find you at Springfield."
He wished he could hearten the poor unnerved soul, somehow.
Gaunt stopped outside, looking at them,--some uncertain thought coming and going in his face.
"I'll speak it out, whatever you may think. Dode, I've done you a deadly hurt. Don't ask me what it is,--God knows. I'd like, before I go, to show you I love you in a pure, honorable way, you and your husband"----
The words choked in his throat; he stopped abruptly.
"Whatever you do, it will be honorable, David," said Palmer, gently.
"I think--God might take it as expiation,"--holding his hand to his head.
He did not speak again for a little while, then he said,----
"I will never see these old Virginian hills again. I am going West; they will let me nurse in one of the hospitals;--that will be better than this that is on my hand."
Whatever intolerable pain lay in these words, he smothered it down, kept his voice steady.
"Do you understand, Douglas Palmer? I will never see you again. Nor Dode. You love this woman; so did I,--as well as you. Let me make her your wife before I go,--here, under this sky, with God looking down on us. Will you? I shall be happier to know that I have done it."
He waited while Douglas spoke eagerly to the girl, and then said,----
"Theodora, for God's sake don't refuse! I have hurt you,--the marks of it you and I will carry to the grave. Let me think you forgive me before I go. Grant me this one request."
Did she guess the hurt he had done her? Through all her fright and blushes, the woman in her spoke out nobly.
"I do not wish to know how you have wronged me. Whatever it be, it was innocently done. God will forgive you, and I do. There shall be peace between us, David."
But she did not offer to touch his hand again: stood there, white and trembling.
So they were married, Douglas and Dode, in the wide winter night. A few short words, that struck the very depths of their being, to make them one: simple words, wrung out of the man's thin lips with what suffering only he knew.