THE STEADFAST HEART
—that, come what might, he would do the thing required of him, that there resided in him a glowing force which demanded of him the performance of what his mind and heart told him was the demand of duty…. From that instant she took him to her heart without reservation.
“But, Angus, aren’t you expecting too much of yourself? You’re only a boy…. Do you really think you can get out the paper?”
“I know I can,” he said simply. “There was a paper—down there. I used to—go to the office a lot. I—I pretended it was his paper and that I was with him.”
Mary had not looked for sentiment nor for poetry—it was unconscious sentiment and poetry she found, the sort which is not invented by the lips, but which derives, unbidden, from the heart. It was an illuminating flash.
He turned his face suddenly toward the door, arrested by footsteps on the porch. It was Doctor Knipe, who entered brusquely without rapping. He scowled at Angus and was hurrying past up the stairs when Mary halted him.
“Doctor,” she said, “this is Angus Burke, come back to us.”
“Angus Burke. Angus Burke…. Who in tunket is Angus Burke?”
“You must remember him—the boy Dave Wilkins—”
147
