he had turned around and he was doing everything in his power, making his utmost effort, to live.
Soberly Jamie laid on the pad and fastened the bandage that held it in place. Soberly he donned his clothing and went out to his work. Every few minutes he stopped and stood staring before him, Fifty times that morning he said to himself: “There isn’t a ghost of a chance of my dying in six months or six years, or ten times six years, if I keep on improving as I am now. The only way I could die would be to wreck myself, and if the day ever comes when I meet Alice Louise face to face and her circumstances seem to be accompanied by mitigation, what will she think of me for being alive?”
Then Jamie’s sense of humour came to the surface.
“If matters turned out in such a way that I had a chance to live, I suppose she wouldn’t ask me to kill myself if the wound didn’t kill me; and if she did, I scarcely believe I’d follow even the dictates of a lady quite that far. I’ll tell her I was honest, that that storm night was as black for me as it was for her, that the struggle that raged in my heart was the same thing as the storm in hers or the storm on the sea. I’ll tell her that it is my good fortune that the sun has broken through and that there’s life in store for me, I’ll tell her that I called on God and He came to the rescue and made it life and work and a chance for happiness. I’ll tell her that if she will call on God, it will be in His power to straighten out her problems. as mine are straightening. I’ll tell her that it is not my fault that I’m alive. No, I can’t very well tell her that, either.
