“Gila, I have a story to tell you,” he said.  “Until you know it you can never understand me fully, and I want with all my heart to have you understand me.  It is something that has become a part of me.”

She sat quivering, wondering, half fearful.  A gleam of jealousy came into her averted face.  Was he going to tell her about another girl?  A fierce, unreasoning anger shot across her face.  She would not tolerate the thought that any one had had him before her.  Was it—?  It couldn’t be that baby-faced pauper in the hospital?  She drew her slim little body up tensely and waited for the story.

Courtland told the story of Stephen; told it well and briefly.  He pictured Stephen so that the girl must needs admire.  No woman could have heard that description of a man such as Stephen had been and not bow her woman’s heart and wish that she might have known him.

Gila listened, fascinated, even up to the moment of the fire and the tragedy when Stephen fell into the flames.  She shuddered visibly several times, but sat tense and still and listened.  She even was unmoved when Courtland went on to tell of finding himself on a ledge above the burning mass, creeping somehow into a small haven, shut in by a wall of smoke, and feeling that this was the end.  But when he began to tell of the Presence, the Light, the Voice, the girl gave a sudden start and gripped her cold hands together.  Almost imperceptibly she drew her tense little body away from him, and turned slowly till she faced him, horror and consternation in her eyes, utter unbelief and scorn on her lips.  But still she did not speak, still held her gaze on him and listened, while he told of coming back to life, the hospital walls, the strange emptiness, and the Presence; the recovery, and the Presence still with him; the going here and there and finding the Presence always before him and yet with him!

“He is here in this room with us, Gila!” he said, simply, as if he had been telling her that he had brought her some flowers and he hoped she would like them.

Then suddenly Gila gave a spring away from him to her feet, uttered a wild scream of terror, and burst into angry tears!

Courtland sprang to his feet in dismay and instant contrition.  He had made the horror of the fire too dramatic.  He had not realized how dreadful it would be to a woman’s delicate sensibilities.  This gentle, loving girl had felt it all to her soul and her nerves had given way before the reality of it.  He had been an idiot to tell the story in that bald way.  He should have gone about it more gently.  He was not used to women.  He must learn better.  Would she forgive him?