“Go to it, Hester,” he said, coughing about in his throat and rising to walk away.  “Bring him here and give him the fat of the land.  You can count on me to keep out of the way.  Go to it,” he repeated.

And so they were married, Hester holding his hand beside the hospital cot, the man nurse and doctor standing by, and the chaplain incanting the immemorial words.  A bar of sunshine lay across the bed, and Gerald pronounced each “I will” in a lifted voice that carried to the four corners of the little room.  She was allowed to stay that night past hospital hours, and they talked with the dusk flowing over them.

“Hester, Hester,” he said, “I should have had the strength to hold out against your making this terrible sacrifice.”

“It’s the happiest hour of my life,” she said, kissing him.

“I feel well enough to get up now, sweetheart.”

“Gerald, don’t force.  You’ve weeks ahead before you are ready for that.”

“But to-morrow, dear, home!  In whose car are you calling for me to-morrow to take me home?”

“In a friend’s, dearest.”

“Won’t I be crowding up our little apartment?  Describe it again to me, dearest—­our home.”

“It’s so little, Gerald.  Three rooms and the littlest, babiest kitchen.  When you’re once up, I’ll teach its every corner to you.”

Tears seeped through the line where his lids had been, and it was almost more than she could bear.

“I’ll make it up to you, though, Hester.  I know I should have been strong enough to hold out against your marrying me, but I’ll make it up.  I’ve a great scheme; a sort of braille system of accountancy—­”

“Please, Gerald—­not now!”

“If only, Hester, I felt easier about the finances.  Will your savings stand the strain?  Your staying at home from your work this way—­and then me—­”

“Gerald dear, I’ve told you so often—­I’ve saved more than we need.”

“My girl!”

“My dear, my dear!” she said.

* * * * *

They moved him with hardly a jar in an army ambulance, and with the yellow limousine riding alongside to be of possible aid, and she had the bed stripped of its laces and cool with linen for him, and he sighed out when they placed him on it and would not let go her hand.

“What a feeling of space for so little a room!”

“It’s the open windows, love.”

He lay back tiredly.

“What sweet linen!”

“I shopped it for you.”

“You, too—­you’re in linen, Hester?”

“A percale shirt waist.  I shopped it for you, too.”

“Give me your hand,” he said, and pressed a string of close kisses into its palm.

The simplicity of the outrageous subterfuge amazed even her.  She held hothouse grapes at two dollars a pound to his lips, and he ate them through a smile.

“Naughty, extravagant girl!” he said.