Of all the young fellows of his acquaintance, he could think of none on whom such a blow would fall more crushingly.  He had counted so much on his future.  Phil got up and began to pace back and forth at the end of the long studio, his hands in his pockets, recalling the days of their old intimacy on the desert.  Scene after scene came up before him, till he felt a tightening of the throat that made him set his teeth together grimly.  Then Joyce sat up and began to talk about him brokenly, with gushes of tears now and then, as one recalls the good traits of those who have passed out of life.

“He was so little when papa died, but he’s tried to take his place in every way possible, ever since.  So unselfish and uncomplaining—­always taking the brunt of everything! You know how it was, Phil.  You saw him a thousand times giving up his own pleasure to make life easier for us.  And it doesn’t seem right that just when things were getting where he could reach out for what he wanted most, it should be snatched away from him!”

“I wish Daddy were home,” sighed Phil.  “I’d take him out for a look at him.  I can’t believe that it is so hopeless as all that.  And anyhow, I’ve always felt that Daddy could put me together again if I were all broken to bits.  He has almost performed miracles several times when everybody else gave the case up.  But he won’t be back for months and maybe a whole year.”

“Oh, it’s no use hoping, when the three best surgeons in Phoenix give such a report,” said Joyce gloomily.  “If it was anything but his spine, it wouldn’t be so bad.  We’ve just got to face the situation and acknowledge that it means he’ll be a life-long invalid.  And I know he’d rather have been killed outright.”

“And it was just before his accident,” said Betty, wiping her eyes, “that he wrote to me so jubilantly about his plans.  He said he couldn’t help being sanguine over them.  It was so good to be young and strong and feel that your muscle was equal to the strain put upon it, and that the old world looked about all right to him that morning.  It is going to be such a disappointment to him not to be able to send Mary back to school.”

“Poor little Mary!” said Phil.  “All this is nearly going to kill her.  She is so completely wrapped up in Jack, I am afraid that it will make her bitter.”

“Isn’t it strange?” asked Betty.  “I was wondering about that while we were out at the Inn this evening.  She was in such high spirits, that I thought of that line from Moore: 

     “’The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
       Is always the first to be touched by the thorns,’

and thought if she should take sorrow as intensely as she does her pleasures, any great grief would overwhelm her.”

They had been discussing the situation for more than an hour, when the door from the bedroom opened, and Mary came out.  Her eyes were red and swollen as if she had been crying a week, but she was strangely calm and self-possessed.  She had rushed away from them an impetuous child in an uncontrollable storm of grief.  Now as she came in they all felt that some great change had taken place in her, even before she spoke.  She seemed to have grown years older in that short time.