"
Her voice again trembled with facile emotion.
"Wasn't it beautiful of him? Ain't he a real hero?" she said. "And I'm
sure you'd behave just like him; you'd be just as gentle about little
things, and you'd never move an inch about big ones. You'd never do a mean
action, but you'd be sorry for people who did; I can see it in your face;
that's why I trusted you right off."
Woburn's eyes were fixed on the window; he hardly seemed to hear her. At
length he walked across the room and pulled up the shade. The electric
lights were dissolving in the gray alembic of the dawn. A milk-cart
rattled down the street and, like a witch returning late from the Sabbath,
a stray cat whisked into an area. So rose the appointed day.
Woburn turned back, drawing from his pocket the roll of bills which he had
thrust there with so different a purpose. He counted them out, and handed
her fifteen dollars.
"That will pay for your board, including your breakfast this morning," he
said. "We'll breakfast together presently if you like; and meanwhile
suppose we sit down and watch the sunrise. I haven't seen it for years."
He pushed two chairs toward the window, and they sat down side by side.
The light came gradually, with the icy reluctance of winter; at last a red
disk pushed itself above the opposite house-tops and a long cold gleam
slanted across their window. They did not talk much; there was a silencing
awe in the spectacle.
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