“She wants me,” he said to himself.  The joy was inextricably mingled with pain.  “She wants me,” he thought, “and I must not go.”

“Why?” asked his heart, and his conscience replied, miserably, “Because.”

For ten or fifteen minutes he argued with himself, vainly.  Every objection that came forward was reasoned down by a trained mind, versed in the intricacies of the law.  The deprivations of the fathers need not always descend unto the children.  At last he went over, wondering whether his father had not more than once, and at the same hour, taken the same path.

[Sidenote:  Two Hours of Life]

Barbara was out in the garden, dreaming.  For the first time in years, when she had work to do, she had laid it aside before eleven o’clock.  But, in two hours, she could have made little progress with her embroidery, and she chose to take for herself two hours of life, out of what might prove to be the last night she had to live.

When Roger opened the gate, Barbara took her crutches and rose out of her low chair.

“Don’t,” he said.  “I’m coming to you.”

She had brought out another chair, with great difficulty, in anticipation of his coming.  Her own was near the moonflower that climbed over the tiny veranda and was now in full bloom.  The white, half-open trumpets, delicately fragrant, had more than once reminded him of Barbara herself.

“What a brute I’d be,” thought Roger, with a pang, “if I had disappointed her.”

“I’m so glad,” said Barbara, giving him a cool, soft little hand.  “I began to be afraid you couldn’t come.”

“I couldn’t, just at first, but afterward it was all right.  How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you, but I’m going to be made better to-morrow.  That’s why I wanted to see you to-night—­it may be for the last time.”

Her words struck him with chill foreboding.  “What do you mean?”

“To-morrow, some doctors are coming down from the city, with two nurses and a few other things.  They’re going to see if I can’t do without these.”  She indicated the crutches with an inclination of her golden head.

“Barbara,” he gasped.  “You mustn’t.  It’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible any more,” she returned, serenely.

“That isn’t what I meant.  You mustn’t be hurt.”

[Sidenote:  A Wonderful World]

“I’m not going to be hurt—­much.  It’s all to be done while I’m asleep.  Miss Wynne, a lady from the hotel, brought Doctor Conrad to see me.  Afterward, he came again by himself, and he says he is very sure that it will come out all right.  And when I’m straight and strong and can walk, he’s going to try to have father made to see.  A fairy godmother came in and waved her wand,” went on Barbara, lightly, “and the poor became rich at once.  Now the lame are to walk and the blind to see.  Is it not a wonderful world?”

“Barbara!” cried Roger; “I can’t bear it.  I don’t want you changed—­I want you just as you are.”