She entered, quietly, and laid the coat on a chair.  She started back to the door, but, before she touched the knob, the blind man stirred in his sleep.

“Constance,” he said, drowsily, “is that you?  Have you come back, Beloved?  It has seemed so long.”

[Sidenote:  Surging Hatred]

Miriam set her lips grimly against the surging hatred for the dead that welled up within her.  She went out hastily, and noiselessly closed the door.

XVII

“Never Again”

Barbara did not mind lying in bed, now that the heavy plaster cast was gone and she could move about with comparative freedom.  Every day, Aunt Miriam massaged her with fragrant oils, and she faithfully took the slight exercises she was bidden to take, even though she knew it was of no use.  She was glad, now, that she had kept the crutches in sight, for they had steadily reminded her not to hope too much.

[Sidenote:  Bitterly Disappointed]

Still, she was bitterly disappointed, though she thought she had not allowed herself to hope—­that she had done it only because Eloise wanted her to.  Perhaps the red-haired young man knew, and perhaps not—­she was not so sure, now, that he had refrained from telling her through motives of kindness.  But Doctor Conrad would know, instantly, and he and Eloise would be very sorry.  Barbara wiped away her tears and compressed her lips tightly together.  “I won’t cry,” she said to herself.  “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

Her father had gone to the city with the red-haired young man and the nurse.  He had been gone more than a week, and Barbara had received no news of him save a brief note from Doctor Conrad.  He said that her father had been to a specialist of whom he had spoken to her, and that an operation had been decided upon.  He would tell her all about it, he added, when he saw her.

Day by day, Barbara lived over the last evening she and her father had spent together—­all the fear and foreboding.  She did not for a moment regret that she had taken his precious letter from him and destroyed it.  She would face whatever she must, and as bravely as she might, but he should not be hurt in that manner—­she had taken the one sure way to spare him that.

[Sidenote:  A Long Farewell]

When he came back, and realised to the full how steadily she had deceived him, he could love her no more.  When he said good-bye to her the morning he went away, it had been good-bye in more ways than one.  It was a long farewell to the love and confidence that had bound him to her; an eternal separation, in spirit, from the child he had loved.

The tears came when she remembered how he had said good-bye to her.  Aunt Miriam and the red-haired young man and the nurse had left them alone together for what might be the last time on earth, and was most surely the last time as regarded the old, sweet relation so soon to be severed—­unless he came back blind, as he had gone.