"If it be so, Gabriella, I hope all the rest of your life you will
be happy. I hope no more trouble will ever come to you."

Suddenly he sat up, lifted her head, and threw his arms around her
again. "Oh, Gabriella!" he cried, "you have been all there is to
me."

"Some day," he continued a moment later, "if it turns out that way,
come over here to see my father and mother. And tell them I left
word that perhaps they had never quite understood me and so had
never been able to do me justice. Now, will you call my mother?"

"Mother," he said, taking her by the hand and placing it in
Gabriella's, "this is my wife, as I hope she will be, and your
daughter; and I have asked her to stay and help you to nurse me
through this cold."

Three twilights more and there was a scene in the little upper room
of the farmhouse: David drawn up on the bed; at one side of it, the
poor distracted mother, rocking herself and loudly weeping; for
though mothers may not greatly have loved their grown sons, when
the big men lie stricken and the mothers once more take their hands
to wash them, bathe their faces with a cloth, put a spoon to their
lips, memory brings back the days when those huge erring bodies lay
across their breasts. They weep for the infant, now an infant again
and perhaps falling into a long sleep.

On the other side of the bed sat David's father, bending over
toward, trying now, as he had so often tried, to reach his son;
thinking at swift turns of the different will he would have to make