When the banker
had to leave the room at the sight of the carnage, she remained, and she
and John Sibley were as cool as the Young Doctor and his
fellow-anatomist, till it was all over, and Shiel Crozier was started
again on a safe journey back to health. 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.
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