"But you'll have to be with Keith—some."

"Oh, yes, a little. But he won't know who I am. I'm just Dr. Stewart's daughter. Don't you see?"

"But—he'll know your voice."

"I shan't talk much. Besides, he never did hear me talk much. It was always Mazie that talked most. And he hasn't heard me any for a year or more, except that little bit that day at the house."

"But your name, Dorothy," still argued Susan dubiously.

"Father never calls me that. I'm always 'Puss' to him. And there won't be anybody else with us on the journey. Don't you worry. You just send Keith right along, and trust me for the rest. You'll see," she nodded again brightly, as she turned away.

Susan went home then to her neglected work. There seemed really nothing else that she could do. But that she was far from following Miss Dorothy's blithe advice "not to worry" was very evident from her frowning brow and preoccupied air all the rest of the time until Tuesday morning when Keith went—until, indeed, Mr. Burton came home from seeing Keith off on his journey. Then her pent-up perturbation culminated in an onslaught of precipitate questions.

"Was he all right? Was that girl there? Did he know who she was? Do you think he'll find out?"

"One at a time, Susan, one at a time," laughed the man. "Yes, he was all right. He went off smiling, with the doctor's arm about his shoulders. Yes, the young lady was there, but she kept well away from Keith, so far as I could see. Friends had come evidently to see her off, but I noticed she contrived to keep herself and them as far away from Keith as possible. Of course, on the journey there'll be just the three of them. The test will come then. But I wouldn't worry, Susan. Remember your own advice about those bridges of yours. He's started, and he's with the doctor. I don't think he'll turn back now."

"No, I s'pose not," sighed Susan. "But I wish I could really KNOW how things are!" she finished, as she took up her work again.

Thirty-six hours later came the telegram from the doctor telling of their safe arrival, and a week later came a letter from Keith himself to Susan. It was written in lead-pencil on paper that had been carefully perforated so as to form lines not too near together.

At the top of the page in parentheses were these words:

DEAR SUSAN: If you think dad would like it you may read him a part or the whole of this letter. I was afraid I wouldn't write very well and that he wouldn't like to see it. So I write to you instead. I know you won't mind.

Below came the letter.

DEAR SUSAN: How do you and dad do? I am well and hope you are the same.

This is an awfully pretty place with trees and big lawns all around it, and walks and seats everywhere in the summer, they say. We aren't sitting outdoors to-day, though. It's only four below!

We had a jolly trip out. The doctor's great. He spent half his time talking to me about the things we were seeing out the window. We went through a wonderful country, and saw lots of interesting things.

The doctor's daughter was along, too. But she didn't have much to say on the trip. I've seen quite a lot of her since we've been here, though, and she's ALL RIGHT. At first I didn't like her very well. It was her voice, I guess. It reminded me of somebody I didn't like to be reminded of. But after I got used to it I found she was really very nice and jolly. She knows lots of games, and we play together a lot now. She's so different from that girl she sounded like that I don't mind her voice now. And I don't think she minds (here a rather unsuccessful erasure showed that "playing with me" had been substituted for "being with blind folks").

She gave me this paper, and told me the folks at home would like a letter, she knew. That's why I'm writing it. And I guess that's enough for this time.

Love to all. KEITH BURTON

P.S. I'm going to have the operation to-morrow, but they won't know for quite a while whether it's successful or not, the doctor says. KEITH

Susan read this letter, then took it at once to the studio and read it again aloud.

"Now ain't that great?" she crowed, as soon as she had finished.

"Y-yes, but he didn't say much about himself or his treatment," demurred the man.

Susan made an impatient gesture.

"Why, yes, he did, too! Lan' sakes, Mr. Burton, he didn't talk about nothin' else but himself an' his treatment, all the way through. Oh, I know he didn't say anything about his occultist treatment, if that's what you mean. But I didn't do no worryin' about that part. It was the other part."

"The other part!"

"Yes. They're treatin' him as if he wa'n't different an' queer. An' didn't you notice the way he wrote? Happy as a king tellin' about what he SAW on the way out, an' the wonderful country they went through. They're all right—them two are. I shan't do no more worryin' about Keith. An' her fixin' that paper so cute for him to write on—I declare I'm that zealous of her I don't know what to do. Why couldn't I 'a' thought of that?" she sighed, as she rose to leave the room.

Two days later came a letter from the doctor. The operation had been performed and, so far as they could judge, all was well, though, as Keith had written, the real results would not show until the bandages were removed some time later.

When the schools opened again in January, Dorothy Parkman came back to Hinsdale. Susan had been counting the days ever since Christmas, for she knew Dorothy was coming, and she could scarcely wait to see her. This time, however, she did not have to tramp through the streets and stores looking for her, for Miss Dorothy came at once to the house and rang the bell.

"I knew you'd want to hear all about Mr. Keith," she smiled brightly into Susan's eyes. "And I'm glad to report that he's doing all right."

"Be them bandages off yet? Do you mean—he can see?" demanded Susan excitedly, leading the way to the sitting-room.

"Oh, no—no—not that!" cried the girl quickly. "I mean—he's doing all right so far. It's a week yet before the bandages can be removed, and even then, he probably won't see much—if at all. There'll have to be another one—later—father says—maybe two more."

"Oh!" Susan fell back, plainly disappointed. Then, suddenly, a new interest flamed into her eyes.

"An' he ain't sensed yet who you are?" she questioned.

Miss Dorothy blushed, and Susan noticed suddenly how very pretty she was.

"No. Though I must confess that at first, when he heard my voice, he looked up much startled, and even rose from his seat. But I told him lots of folks thought I talked like Dorothy Parkman; and I just laughed and turned it off, and made nothing of it. And so pretty quick he made nothing of it, too. After that we got along beautifully."

"I should say you did!" retorted Susan, almost enviously. "An' you fixin' up that paper so fine for him to write on!"

Miss Dorothy blushed again—and again Susan noticed how very charming was the combination of brown eyes and yellow-gold hair.

"Yes, he did like that paper," smiled the young girl. "He never mentioned the lines, and neither did I. When I first suggested the letter home he was all ready to refuse, I could see; but I wouldn't give him the chance. Before he could even speak I had thrust the paper into his hands, and I could see the wonder, interest, and joy in his face as his fingers discovered the pricked lines and followed their course from edge to edge. But he didn't let ME know he'd found them— not much! 'Well, I don't know but they would like a letter,' was all he said, casually. I knew then that I had won."

"Well, I should say you had. But HOW did you know how?" cried Susan.

"Oh, you told me first that I must talk to him as if he were not blind. Then father told me the same thing. He said lots of his patients were like that. So I always tried to do it that way. And it's wonderful how, when you give it a little thought, you can manage to tell them so much that they can turn about and tell somebody else, just as if they really had seen it."

"I know, I know," nodded Susan. "An'—Miss Dorothy"—her voice grew unsteady—"he really IS goin' to see by an' by, ain't he?"

The girl's face clouded.

"They aren't at all sure of that."

"But they can't tell YET?" Susan had grown a little white.

"Oh, no, not sure."

"An' they're goin' to give him all the chances there is?"

"Certainly. I only spoke because I don't want you to be too disappointed if—if we lose. You must remember that fully half of the cases do lose."

Susan drew a long sigh. Then, determinedly she lifted her chin.

"Well, I like to think we ain't goin' to belong to that half," she said.



CHAPTER XVI

THE WORRY OF IT

There was a letter from the doctor when the bandages were removed. Daniel Burton began to read the letter, but his eyes blurred and his hand shook, so that Susan had to take it up where he had dropped it.

Yet the letter was very short.

The operation had been as successful, perhaps, as they could expect, under the circumstances. Keith could discern light now—faintly, to be sure, but unmistakably. He was well and happy. Meanwhile he was under treatment for the second operation to come later. But that could not be performed for some time yet, so they must not lose their patience. That was all.

"Well, I s'pose we ought to be glad he can see light even a little," sighed Susan; "but I'm free to confess I was hopin' he could do a little more than that."

"Yes, so was I," said Daniel Burton. And Susan, looking at his face, turned away without another word. There were times when Susan knew enough not to talk.

Then came the days when there were only Keith's letters and an occasional short note from the doctor to break the long months of waiting.

In the Burton homestead at Hinsdale, living was reduced to the simplest formula possible. On the whole, there was perhaps a little more money. Dunning tradesmen were not so numerous. But all luxuries, and some things that were almost necessities, were rigorously left out. And the money was saved always—for Keith. A lodger, a young law student, in Keith's old room helped toward defraying the family expenses.

Susan had given up trying to sell her "poems." She had become convinced at last that a cruel and unappreciative editorial wall was forever to bar her from what she still believed was an eagerly awaiting public. She still occasionally wrote jingles and talked in rhyme; but undeniably she had lost her courage and her enthusiasm. As she expressed it to Mrs. McGuire, she did not feel "a mite like a gushing siphon inside her now."

As the summer came and passed, Susan and Mrs. McGuire talked over the back-yard fence even more frequently. Perhaps because Susan was lonely without Keith. Perhaps because there was so much to talk about.

First there was Keith.

Keith was still under treatment preparatory to the second operation. He had not responded quite as they had hoped, the doctor said, which meant that the operation must be postponed for perhaps several months longer.

All this Susan talked over with Mrs. McGuire; and there was always, too, the hushed discussion as to what would happen if, after all, it failed, and Keith came home hopelessly blind.

"But even that ain't the worst thing that could happen," maintained Susan stoutly. "I can tell you Keith Burton ain't goin' to let a little thing like that floor him!"

Mrs. McGuire, however, did not echo Susan's optimistic prophecies. But Mrs. McGuire's own sky just now was overcast, which perhaps had something to do with it. Mrs. McGuire had troubles of her own.

It was the summer of 1914, and the never-to-be-forgotten August had come and passed, firing the match that was destined to set the whole world ablaze. Mrs. McGuire's eldest son John—of whom she boasted in season and out and whom she loved with an all-absorbing passion—had caught the war-fever, gone to Canada, and enlisted. Mrs. McGuire herself was a Canadian by birth, and all her family still lived there. She was boasting now more than ever about John; but, proud as she was of her soldier boy, his going had plunged her into an abyss of doubt and gloom.

"He'll never come back, he'll never come back," she moaned to Susan. "I can just feel it in my bones that he won't."

"Shucks, a great, strong, healthy boy like John McGuire! Of course, he'll come back," retorted Susan. "Besides, likely the war'll be all over with 'fore he gets there, anyhow. An' as for feelin' it in your bones, Mis' McGuire, that's a very facetious doctrine, an' ain't no more to be depended upon than my flour sieve for an umbrella. They're gay receivers every time—bones are. Why, lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, if all things happened that my bones told me was goin' to happen, there wouldn't none of us be livin' by now, nor the sun shinin', nor the moon moonin'. I found out, after awhile, how they DIDN'T happen half the time, an' I wrote a poem on it, like this:

Trust 'em not, them fickle bones, Always talkin' moans an' groans. Jest as if inside of you, Lived a thing could tell you true, Whether it was goin' to rain, Whether you would have a pain, Whether him or you would beat, Whether you'd have 'nuf to eat! Bones was give to hold us straight, Not to tell us 'bout our Fate."

"Yes, yes, I s'pose so," sighed Mrs. McGuire. "But when I think of John, my John, lyin' there so cold an' still—"

"Well, he ain't lyin' there yet," cut in Susan impatiently. "Time enough to hunt bears when you see their tracks. Mis' McGuire, CAN'T you see that worryin' don't do no good? You'll have it ALL for nothin', if he don't get hurt; an' if he does, you'll have all this extra for nothin', anyway,—that you didn't need till the time came. Ever hear my poem on worryin'?"

Without waiting for a reply—Susan never asked such questions with a view to having them answered—she chanted this:

"Worry never climbed a hill, Worry never paid a bill, Worry never led a horse to water. Worry never cooked a meal, Worry never darned a heel, Worry never did a thing you'd think it oughter!"

"Yes, yes, I know, I know," sighed Mrs. McGuire again. "But John is so—well, you don't know my John. Nobody knows John as I do. He'd have made a big man if he'd lived—John would."

"'If he'd lived'!" repeated Susan severely. "Well, I never, Mis' McGuire, if you ain't talkin' already as if he was dead! You don't have to begin to write his obliquity notice yet, do you?"

"But he is dead," moaned Mrs. McGuire, catching at the one word in Susan's remark and paying no attention to the rest. "He's dead to everything he was goin' to do. He was ambitious,—my John was. He was always studyin' and readin' books nights an' Sundays an' holidays, when he didn't have to be in the store. He was takin' a course, you know."

"Yes, I know—one of them respondin' schools," nodded Susan. "John's a clever lad, he is, I'm free to confess."

Under the sunshine of Susan's appreciation Mrs. McGuire drew a step nearer.

"He was studyin' so he could 'mount to somethin'—John was," declared Mrs. McGuire. "He was goin' to be"—she paused and threw a hurried look over her shoulder—"he was keepin' it secret, but he won't mind my tellin' NOW. He was goin' to be a—writer some day, he hoped."

Susan's instantly alert attention was most flattering.

"Sho! You don't say! Poems?"

"I don't know." Mrs. McGuire drew back and spoke a little coldly. Now that the secret was out, Mrs. McGuire was troubled evidently with qualms of conscience. "He never said much. He didn't want it talked about."

Susan drew a long breath.

"Yes, I know. 'Tain't so pleasant if folks know—when you can't sell 'em. Now in my case—"

But Mrs. McGuire, with a hurried word about the beans in her oven, had hastened into the house.

Mrs. McGuire was not the only one with whom Susan was having long talks. September had come bringing again the opening of the schools, which in turn had brought Miss Dorothy Parkman back to Hinsdale.

Miss Dorothy was seventeen now, and prettier than ever—in Susan's opinion. She had been again to her father's home; and Susan never could hear enough of her visit or of Keith. Nor was Miss Dorothy evidently in the least loath to talk of her visit—or of Keith. Patiently, even interestedly, each time she saw Susan, she would repeat for her the details of Keith's daily life, telling everything that she knew about him.

"But I've told you all there is, before," she said laughingly one day at last, when Susan had stopped her as she was going by the house. "I've told it several times before."

"Yes, I know you have," nodded Susan, drawing a long breath; "but I always get somethin' new in it, just as I do in the Bible, you know. You always tell me somethin' you hadn't mentioned before. Now, to-day —you never told me before about them dominoes you an' him played together."

"Didn't I?" An added color came into Miss Dorothy's cheeks. "Well, we played them quite a lot. Poor fellow! Time hung pretty heavily on his hands, and we HAD to do something for him. There were other games, too, that we played together."

"But how can he play dominoes, an' those others, when—when he can't see?"

"Oh, the points of the dominoes are raised, of course, and the board has little round places surrounded by raised borders for him to keep his dominoes in. The cards are marked with little raised signs in the corners, and there are dice studded with tiny nailheads. The checker- board has little grooves to keep the men from sliding. Of course, we already had all these games, you know. They use them for all father's patients. But, of course, Keith had to be taught first."

"And you taught him?"

"Well, I taught him some of them." The added color was still in Miss Dorothy's cheeks.

"An' you told me last week you read to him."

"Yes, oh, yes. I read to him quite a lot."

The anxiously puckered frown on Susan's face suddenly dissolved into a broad smile.

"Lan' sakes, if that ain't the limit!" she chuckled.

"Well, what do you mean by that?" bridled Miss Dorothy, looking not exactly pleased.

"Nothin'. It's only that I was jest a-thinkin' how you was foolin' him."

"Fooling him?" Miss Dorothy was looking decidedly not pleased now.

"Yes, an' you all the time Dorothy Parkman, an' he not knowin' it."

"Oh!" The color on Miss Dorothy's face was one pink blush now. Then she laughed lightly. "After all, do you know?—I hardly ever thought of that, after the very first. He called me Miss Stewart, of course— but lots of folks out there do that. They don't think, or don't know, about my name being different, you see. The patients, coming and going all the time, know me as the doctor's daughter, and naturally call me 'Miss Stewart.' So it doesn't seem so queer when Mr. Keith does it."

"Good!" exclaimed Susan with glowing satisfaction. "An' now here's to hopin' he won't never find out who you really be!"

"Is he so very bitter, then, against—Dorothy Parkman?" The girl asked the question a little wistfully.

"He jest is," nodded Susan with unflattering emphasis. "If you'd heard him when he jest persisted that he wouldn't have anybody that was Dorothy Parkman's father even look at his eyes you'd have thought so, I guess. An'—why, he even wrote about it 'way back last Christmas—I mean, when he first told us about you. He said the doctor had a daughter, an' she was all right; but he didn't like her at all at first, 'cause her voice kept remindin' him of somebody he didn't want to be reminded of."

"Did he really write—THAT?"

"Them's the identifyin' words," avowed Susan. "So you'll jest have to keep it secret who you be, you see," she warned her.

"Yes, I—see," murmured the girl. All the pretty color had quite gone from her face now, leaving it a little white and strained-looking. "I'll try—to."

"Of course, when he gets back his sight he'll find out—that is, Miss Dorothy, he IS going to get it back, ain't he?" Susan's own face now had become a little white and strained-looking.

Miss Dorothy shook her head.

"I don't know, Susan; but I'm—afraid."

"Afraid! You don't mean he AIN'T goin' to?" Susan caught Miss Dorothy's arm in a vise-like grip.

"No, no, not that; but we aren't—SURE. And—and the symptoms aren't quite so good as they were," hurried on the girl a bit feverishly.

"But I thought he could see—light," faltered Susan.

"He could, at first, but it's been getting dimmer and dimmer, and now"—the girl stopped and wet her lips—"there's to be a second operation, you know. Father hopes to have it by Christmas, or before; but I know father is afraid—that is—he thinks—"

"He don't like the way things is goin'," cut in Susan grimly. "Ain't that about it?"

"I'm afraid it is," faltered Miss Dorothy, wetting her lips again. "And when I think of that boy—" She turned away her head, leaving her sentence unfinished.

"Well, we ain't goin' to think of it till it comes" declared Susan stoutly. "An' then—well, if it does come, we've all got to set to an' help him forget it. That's all."

"Yes, of—course," murmured the girl, turning away again. And this time she turned quite away and went on down the street, leaving Susan by the gate alone.

"Nice girl, an' a mighty pretty one, too," whispered Susan, looking after the trim little figure in its scarlet cap and sweater. "An' she's got a good kind heart in her, too, a-carin' like that about that poor boy's bein'—"

Susan stopped short. A new look had come to her face—a look of wonder, questioning, and dawning delight. "Lan' sakes, why hain't I never thought of that before?" she muttered, her eyes still on the rapidly disappearing little red figure down the street. "Oh, 'course they're nothin' but babies now, but by an' by—! Still, if he ever found out she was Dorothy Parkman, an' of course he'd have to find it out if he married—Oh, lan' sakes, what fools some folks be!"

With which somewhat cryptic statement Susan turned and marched irritably into the house.



CHAPTER XVII

DANIEL BURTON TAKES THE PLUNGE

Dr. Stewart's second operation on Keith's eyes took place late in November. It was not a success. Far from increasing his vision, it lessened it. Only dimly now could he discern light at all.

In a letter to Daniel Burton, Dr. Stewart stated the case freely and frankly, yet he declared that he had not given up hope—yet. He had a plan which, with Mr. Burton's kind permission, he would carry out. He then went on to explain.

In Paris there was a noted specialist in whom he had great confidence. He wished very much that this man could see Keith. To take Keith over now, however, as war conditions were, would, of course, be difficult and hazardous. Besides, as he happened to know, this would not be necessary, for the great man was coming to this country some time in May. To bring Keith to his attention then would be a simple matter, and a chance well worth waiting for. Meanwhile, the boy was as comfortable where he was as he could be anywhere, and, moreover, there were certain treatments which should still be continued. With Daniel Burton's kind permission, therefore, the doctor would keep Keith where he was for the present, pending the arrival of the great specialist.

It was a bitter blow. For days after the letter came, Daniel Burton shut himself up in his studio refusing to see any one but Susan, and almost refusing to see her. Susan, indeed, heart-broken as she was herself, had no time to indulge her own grief, so busy was she trying to concoct something that would tempt her employer to break a fast that was becoming terrifying to her.

Then came Keith's letter. He wrote cheerfully, hopefully. He told of new games that he was playing, new things of interest that he was "seeing." He said nothing whatever about the operation. He did say that there was a big doctor coming from Paris, whom he was going to "see" in May, however. That was all.

When the doctor's letter had come, telling of the failure of the second operation, Susan had read it and accepted it with sternly controlled eyes that did not shed one tear. But when Keith's letter came, not even mentioning the operation, her self-control snapped, and she burst openly into tears.

"I don't care," she sobbed, in answer to Daniel Burton's amazed exclamation. "When I think of the way that blessed boy is holdin' up his head an' marchin' straight on; an' you an' me here—oh, lan' sakes, what's the use of TRYIN' to say it!" she despaired, turning and hurrying from the room.

In December Dr. Stewart came on again to take his daughter back for the holidays. He called at once to see Mr. Burton, and the two had a long conference in the studio, while Susan feverishly moved from room to room downstairs, taking up and setting down one object after another in the aimless fashion of one whose fingers are not controlled by the mind.

When the doctor had gone, Susan did not wait for Daniel Burton to seek her out. She went at once to the studio.

"No, he had nothing new to say about Keith," began the man, answering the agonized question in her eyes before her lips could frame the words.

"But didn't he say NOTHIN'?"

"Oh, yes, he said a great deal—but it was only a repetition of what he had said before in the letter." Daniel Burton spoke wearily, constrainedly. His face had grown a little white. "The doctor bought the big sofa in the hall downstairs, and the dropleaf table in the dining-room."

"Humph! But will he PAY anything for them things?"

"Yes, he will pay well for them. And—Susan."

"Yes, sir." Something in the man's face and voice put a curious note of respect into Susan's manner as sudden as it was unusual.

"I've been intending to tell you for some time. I—I shall want breakfast at seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I—I am going to work in McGuire's store."

"You are goin' to—what?" Susan's face was aghast.

"To work, I said," repeated Daniel Burton sharply. "I shall want breakfast at seven o'clock, Susan." He turned away plainly indicating that for him the matter was closed.

But for Susan the matter was not closed.

"Daniel Burton, you ain't goin' to demean yourself like that!" she gasped;—"an artistical gentleman like you! Why, I'd rather work my hands to the bones—"

"That will do, Susan. You may go."

And Susan went. There were times when Susan did go.

But not yet for Susan was the matter closed. Only an hour later Mrs. McGuire "ran over" with a letter from her John to read to Susan. But barely had she finished reading the letter aloud, when the real object of her visit was disclosed by the triumphant:

"Well, Susan Betts, I notice even an artist has to come down to bein' a 'common storekeeper' sometimes."

Susan drew herself up haughtily.

"Of course, Mis' McGuire, 't ain't for me to pretense that I don't know what you're inferrin' to. But jest let me tell you this: it don't make no difference how many potatoes an' molasses jugs an' kerosene cans Daniel Burton hands over the counter he won't never be jest a common storekeeper. He'll be THINKIN' flowers an' woods an' sunsets jest the same. Furthermore an' moreover, in my opinion it's a very honorary an' praiseful thing for him to do, to go out in the hedges an' byways an' earn money like that, when, if the world only knew enough to know a good thing when they see it, they'd be buy in' them pictures of his, an' not subjugate him to the mystification of earnin' his bread by the sweat of his forehead."

"Oh, good gracious me, Susan Betts, how you do run on, when you get started!" ejaculated Mrs. McGuire impatiently, yet laughingly. "An' I might have known what you'd say, too, if I'd stopped to think. Well, I must be goin', anyhow. I only came over to show you the letter from my John. I'm sure I wish't was him comin' back to his old place behind the counter instead of your Daniel Burton," she sighed. "I'd buy every picture he ever painted (if I had the money), if 't would only bring my John back, away from all those awful bombs an' shells an' shrapnel that he's always writin' about."

"Them be nice letters he writes, I'm free to confess," commented Susan graciously. "Not that they tell so much what he's doin', though; but I s'pose they're censured, anyhow—all them letters be."

Mrs. McGuire, her eyes dreamily fixed out the window, nodded her head slowly.

"Yes, I s'pose so; but there's a lot left—there's always a lot left. And everything he writes I can just see. It was always like that with my John. Let him go downtown an' come back—you'd think he'd been to the circus, the wonderful things he'd tell me he'd seen on the way. An' he'd set 'em out an' describe 'em until I could just see 'em myself! I'll never forget. One day he went to a fire. The old Babcock house burned, an' he saw it. He was twelve years old. I was sick in bed, an' he told me about it. I can see him now, standin' at the foot of the bed, his cheeks red, his eyes sparklin' an' his little hands flourishin' right an' left in his excitement. As he talked, I could just see that old house burn. I could hear the shouts of the men, the roar an' cracklin' of the flames, an' see 'em creepin', creepin', gainin', gainin'-! Oh, it was wonderful—an' there I was right in my own bed, all the time. It was just the way he told it. That's why I know he could have been a writer. He could make others see— everything. But now—that's all over now. He'll never be—anything. I can see him. I can see all that horrible battle-field with the reelin' men, the flames, the smoke, the burstin' shells, an', oh, God—my John! Will he ever, ever come back—to me?"

"There, there, Mis' McGuire, I jest wouldn't—" But Mrs. McGuire, with a shake of her head, and her eyes half covered with her hand, turned away and stumbled out of the kitchen.

Susan, looking after her, drew a long sigh.

"Worry never climbed a hill, Worry never—

There's some times when it's frank impertinence to tell folks not to worry," she muttered severely to herself, attacking the piled-up dishes before her.

Daniel Burton went to work in McGuire's grocery store the next morning, after a particularly appetizing breakfast served to him by a silent, red-eyed, but very attentive Susan.

"An' 'twas for all the world like a lamb to the slaughter-house," Susan moaned to the law-student lodger when she met him on the stairs at eight o'clock that morning. "An' if you want to see a real slaughter-house, you jest come in here," she beckoned him, leading the way to the studio.

"But—but—that is—well—" stammered the young fellow, looking not a little startled as he followed her, with half-reluctant feet.

In the studio Susan flourished accusing arms.

"Look at that, an' that, an' that!" she cried. "Why, it's like jest any extraordinary common-sense room now, that anybody might have, with them pictures all put away, an' his easel hid behind the door, an' not a brush or a cube of paint in sight—an' him dolin' out vinegar an' molasses down to that old store. I tell you it made me sick, Mr. Jenkins, sick!"

"Yes, yes, that's so," murmured Mr. Jenkins, vaguely.

"Well, it did. Why, it worked me up so I jest sat right down an' made up a poem on it. I couldn't help it. An' it came easy, too—'most like the spontaneous combustion kind that I used to write, only I made it free verse. You know that's all the rage now. Like this," she finished, producing from somewhere about her person a half-sheet of note-paper.

"Alone an' dark The studio Waited: Waited for the sun of day. But when it rose, Alas! No lovely pictures greeted The fiery gob. Only their backs showed White an' sorry an' some dusty. No easel sprawled long legs To trip An' make you slip. No cubes of pig-lent gray Or black, Nor any other color lent brightness To this dank world. An' he—the artist? The bright soul who Bossed this ranch? Alas! Doomed to hide his bright talons In smelly kegs of kerosene An' molasses brown an' sticky. Alas, that I should see an' Know this Day.

There, now, ain't that about the way 'tis?" she demanded feelingly.

"Er—yes, yes, it is. That's so." Mr. Jenkins was backing out of the room and looking toward the stairway. Mr. Jenkins had been a member of the Burton household long enough to have learned to take Susan at her own valuation, with no questions asked. "Yes, that's so," he repeated, as he plunged down the stairs.

To Daniel Burton himself Susan made no further protests or even comments—except the silent comment of eager service with some favorite dish for every meal. As Christmas drew near, and Daniel Burton's hours grew longer, Susan still made no audible comment; but she redoubled her efforts to make him comfortable the few hours left to him at home.



CHAPTER XVIII

"MISS STEWART"

It was just after Christmas that another letter came from Keith. It was addressed as usual to Susan. Keith had explained in his second letter that he was always going to write to Susan, so that she might read it to his father, thus saving him the disagreeableness of seeing how crooked and uneven some of his lines were. His father had remonstrated—feebly; but Keith still wrote to Susan.

Keith had been improving in his writing very rapidly, however, since those earliest letters, and most of his letters now were models of even lines and carefully formed characters. But this letter Susan saw at once was very different. It bore unmistakable marks of haste, agitation, and lack of care. It began abruptly, after the briefest of salutations:

Why didn't you tell me you knew Miss Stewart? She says she knows you real well, and father, too, and that she's been to the house lots of times, and that she's going back to Hinsdale next week, and that she is going to school there this year, and will graduate in June.

Oh, she didn't tell me all this at once, you bet your sweet life. I had to worm it out of her little by little. But what I want to know is, why you folks didn't tell me anything about it—that you knew her, and all that? But you never said a word—not a word. Neither you nor dad. But she says she knows dad real well. Funny dad never mentioned it!

Miss Stewart sure is a peach of a girl all right and the best ever to me. She's always hunting up new games for me to play. She's taught me two this time, and she's read two books to me. There's a new fellow here named Henty, and we play a lot together. I am well, and getting along all right. Guess that's all for this time. Love to all. KEITH P.S. Now don't forget to tell me why you never said a thing that you knew Miss Stewart. K.

"Well, now I guess the kettle is in the fire, all right!" ejaculated Susan, folding the letter with hands that shook a little.

"What do you mean?" asked Daniel Burton.

"Why, about that girl, of course. He'll find out now she's Dorothy Parkman. He can't help findin' it out!" "Well, what if he does?" demanded the man, a bit impatiently.

"'What if he does?'" repeated Susan, with lofty scorn. "I guess you'll find what 'tis when that boy does find out she's Dorothy Parkman, an' then won't have nothin' more to do with her, nor her father, nor her father's new doctor, nor anything that is hers."

"Nonsense, Susan, don't be silly," snapped the man, still more irritably. "'Nor her father, nor her father's new doctor, nor anything that is hers,' indeed! You sound for all the world as if you were chanting a catechism! What's the matter? Doesn't the boy like Miss Dorothy?"

"Why, Daniel Burton, you know he don't! I told you long ago all about it, when I explained how we'd got to give her father a resumed name, so Keith wouldn't know, an'—"

"Oh, THAT! What she said about not wanting to see blind people? Nonsense, Susan, that was years ago, when they were children! Why, Keith's a man, nearly. You're forgetting—he'll be eighteen next June, Susan."

"That's all right, Mr. Burton." Susan's lips snapped together grimly and her chin assumed its most defiant tilt. "I ain't sayin' he ain't. But there's some cases where age don't make a mite of difference, an' you'll find this is one of 'em. You mark my words, Daniel Burton. I have seen jest as big fools at eighteen, an' eighty, for that matter, as I have at eight. 'T ain't a matter of decree at all. Keith Burton got it into his head when he was first goin' blind that Dorothy Parkman would hate to look at him if ever he did get blind; an' he just vowed an' determined that if ever he did get that way, she shouldn't see him. Well, now he's blind. An' if you think he's forgot what Dorothy Parkman said, you'd oughter been with me when she came to see him with Mazie Sanborn one day, or even when they just called up to him on the piazza one mornin'."

"Well, well, very likely," conceded the man irritably; "but I still must remind you, Susan, that all this was some time ago. Keith's got more sense now." "Maybe—an' then again maybe not. However, we'll see —what we will see," she mumbled, as she left the room with a little defiant toss of her head.

Susan did not answer Keith's letter at once. Just how she was going to answer that particular question concerning their acquaintance with "Miss Stewart" she did not know, nor could she get any assistance from Daniel Burton on the subject.

"Why, tell him the truth, of course," was all that Daniel Burton would answer, with a shrug, in reply to her urgent appeals for aid in the matter. This, Susan, in utter horror, refused to do.

"But surely you don't expect to keep it secret forever who she is, do you?" demanded Daniel Burton scornfully one day.

"Of course I don't. But I'm going to keep it jest as long as I can," avowed Susan doggedly. "An' maybe I can keep it—till he gets his blessed eyes back. I shan't care if he does find out then."

"I don't think—we'll any of us—mind anything then, Susan," said the man softly, a little brokenly. And Susan, looking into his face, turned away suddenly, to hide her own.

That evening Susan heard that Dorothy Parkman was expected to arrive in Hinsdale in two days.

"I'll jest wait, then, an' intervene the young lady my own self," she mused, as she walked home from the post-office. "This tryin' to settle Dorothy Parkman's affairs without Dorothy Parkman is like havin' omelet with omelet left out," she finished, nodding to herself all in the dark, as she turned in at the Burton gateway.

Dorothy Parkman came two days later. As was usual now she came at once to the house. Susan on the watch, met her at the door, before she could touch the bell.

"Come in, come in! My, but I'm glad to see you!" exclaimed Susan fervently, fairly pulling her visitor into the house. "Now tell me everything—-every single thing."

"Why, there isn't much to tell, Susan. Mr. Keith is about the same, and—"

"No, no, I mean—about YOU" interrupted Susan, motioning the girl to a chair, and drawing her own chair nearer. "About your bein' in Hinsdale an' knowin' us, an' all that, an' his finding it out."

"Oh, THAT!" The color flew instantly into Miss Dorothy's cheeks. "Then he's—he's written you?"

"Written us! I should say he had! An' he wants to know why we hain't told him we know you. An', lan' sakes, Miss Dorothy, what can we tell him?"

"I—I don't know, Susan."

"But how'd you get in such a mess? How'd he find out to begin with?" demanded the woman.

Miss Dorothy drew a long sigh. "Oh, it was my fault, of course. I— forgot. Still, it's a wonder I hadn't forgotten before. You see, inadvertently, I happened to drop a word about Mr. Burton. 'Do you know my dad?' he burst out. Then he asked another and another question. Of course, I saw right away that I must turn it off as if I supposed he'd known it all the time. It wouldn't do to make a secret of it and act embarrassed because he'd found it out, for of course then he'd suspect something wrong right away."

"Yes, yes, I s'pose so," admitted Susan worriedly. "But, lan' sakes, look at us! What are we goin' to say? Now he wants to know why we hain't told him about knowin' you."

"I don't know, Susan, I don't know." The girl shook her head and caught her breath a bit convulsively. "Of course, when I first let it go that I was 'Miss Stewart,' I never realized where it was going to lead, nor how—how hard it might be to keep it up. I've been expecting every day he'd find out, from some one there. But he hasn't—yet. Of course, Aunt Hattie, who keeps house for father, is in the secret, and SHE'D never give it away. Most of the patients don't know much about me, anyway. You see, I've never been there much. They just know vaguely of 'the doctor's daughter,' and they just naturally call her 'Miss Stewart.'"

"Yes, yes, I see, I see," nodded Susan, again still worriedly. "But what I'm thinkin' of is US, Miss Dorothy. How are we goin' to get 'round not mentionin' you all this time, without his findin' out who you be an' demandin' a full exposition of the whole affair. Say, look a-here, would it be—be very bad if he DID find out you was Dorothy Parkman?"

"I'm afraid—it would be, Susan." The girl spoke slowly, a bit unsteadily. She had gone a little white at the question.

"Has he SAID anything?"

"Nothing, only he—When we were talking that day, and he was flinging out those questions one after another, about Hinsdale, and what I knew of it, he—he asked if I knew Dorothy Parkman."

"Miss Dorothy, he didn't!"

"But he did. It was awful, Susan. I felt like—like—"

"Of course you did," interposed Susan, her face all sympathy, "a- sailin' under false premises like that, an' when you were perfectly innocuous, too, of any sinfulness, an' was jest doing it for his best good an' peace of mind. Lan' sakes, what a prediction to be in! What DID you say?"

"Why, I said yes, of course. I had to say yes. And I tried to turn it off right away, and not talk any more about it. But that was easy, anyway, for—for Mr. Keith himself dropped it. But I knew, by the way he looked, and said 'yes, I know her, too,' in that quiet, stern way of his, that—that I'd better not let him find out I was she—not if I wanted to—to stay in the room," she finished, laughing a little hysterically.

"Lan' sakes, you don't say!" frowned Susan.

"Yes; and so that's what makes me know that whatever you do, you mustn't let him know that I am Dorothy Parkman," cried the girl feverishly; "not now—not until he's seen the Paris doctor, for there's no knowing what he'd do. He'd be so angry, you see. He'd never forgive me, for on top of all the rest is the deceit—that I've been with him all these different times, and let him call me 'Miss Stewart.'"

"But how can we do that?" demanded Susan.

"Why, just turn it off lightly. Say, of course, you know me; and seem surprised that you never happened to mention it before. Tell him, oh, yes, I come quite often to tell you and Mr. Burton how he's getting along, and all that. Just make nothing of it—take it as a matter of course, not worth mentioning. See? Then go on and talk about something else. That'll fix it all right, I'm sure, Susan."

"Hm-m; maybe so, an' then again maybe not," observed Susan, with frowning doubt. "As I was tellin' Mr. Burton this mornin' we've got to be 'specially careful about Keith jest now. It's the most hypercritical time there can be—with him waitin' to see that big doctor, an' all—an' he mustn't be upset, no matter what happens, nor how many white lies we have to prognosticate here at home."

"I guess that's so, Susan." Miss Dorothy's eyes were twinkling now. "And, by the way, where is Mr. Burton? I haven't seen him yet."

"He ain't here."

"You don't mean he has gone out of town?" The girl had looked up in surprise at the crisp terseness of Susan's reply.

"Oh, no, he's—in Hinsdale."

"Painting any new pictures these days?" Miss Dorothy was on her feet to go. She asked the question plainly not for information, but to fill the embarrassing pause that Susan's second reply had brought to the conversation.

"No, he ain't," spoke up Susan with a vehemence as disconcerting as it was sudden. "He ain't paintin' nothin', an' he ain't drawin' nothin' neither—only molasses an' vinegar an' kerosene. He's clerkin' down to McGuire's grocery store, if you want to know. That's where he is."

"Why—SUSAN!"

"Yes, I know. You don't have to say nothin', Miss Dorothy. Besides, I wouldn't let you say it if you did. I won't let nobody say it but me. But I will say this much. When folks has set one foot in the cemetery, an' a lame one at that, an' can't see nor hear nor think straight, I don't think it's no hilarious offense to wish they'd hurry up an' get to where they could have all them handy facilities back again, an' leave their money to folks what has got their full complaint of senses, ready to enjoy life, if they get a chance. Oh, yes, I know you don't know what I'm talkin' about, an' perhaps it's jest as well you don't, Miss Dorothy. I hadn't oughter said it, anyhow. Well, I s'pose I've got to go write that letter to Keith now. Seein' as how you've come I can't put it off no longer. Goodness only knows, though, what I'm goin' to say," she sighed, as her visitor nodded back a wistful- eyed good-bye.



CHAPTER XIX

A MATTER OF LETTERS

Susan said afterward, in speaking of that spring, that "'twas nothin' but jest one serious of letters." And, indeed, life did seem to be mostly made up of letters.

At the sanatorium Keith was waiting for spring and the new doctor; and that the waiting was proving to be a little nerve-racking was proved by the infrequency of his letters home, and the shortness and uncommunicativeness of such as did come.

Letters to him from Hinsdale were longer and were invariably bright and cheery. Yet they did not really tell so much, after all. To be sure, they did contain frequent reference to "your Miss Stewart," and gave carefully casual accounts of what she did and said. In the very first letter Susan had hit upon the idea of always referring to the young lady as "your Miss Stewart."

"Then we won't be tellin' no lies," she had explained to Mr. Burton, '"cause she IS his 'Miss Stewart.' See? She certainly don't belong to no one else under that name—that's sure!"

But however communicative as regards "Miss Stewart" the letters were, they were very far from that as regarded some other matters. For instance: neither in Daniel Burton's letters, nor in Susan's, was there any reference to the new clerk in McGuire's grocery store. So far as anything that Keith knew to the contrary, his father was still painting unsalable pictures in the Burton home-stead studio.

But even these were not all the letters that spring. There were the letters of John McGuire from far-away France—really wonderful letters—letters that brought to the little New England town the very breath of the battle-field itself, the smell of its smoke, the shrieks of its shells. And with Mr. Burton, with Susan, with the whole neighborhood indeed, Mrs. McGuire shared them. They were even printed occasionally in the town's weekly newspaper. And they were talked of everywhere, day in and day out. No wonder, then, that, to Susan, the spring seemed but a "serious of letters."

It was in May that the great Paris doctor was expected; but late in April came a letter from Dr. Stewart saying that, owing to war conditions, the doctor had been delayed. He would not reach this country now until July—which meant two more months of weary waiting for Keith and for Keith's friends at home.

It was just here that Susan's patience snapped.

"When you get yourself screwed up to stand jest so much, an' then they come along with jest a little more, somethin's got to break, I tell you. Well, I've broke."

Whether as a result of the "break" or not, Susan did not say, neither did she mention whether it was to assuage her own grief or to alleviate Keith's; but whatever it was, Susan wrote these verses and sent them to Keith:

BY THE DAY

When our back is nigh to breakin', An' our strength is nearly gone, An' along there comes the layin' Of another burden on—

If we'll only jest remember, No matter what's to pay, That 'tisn't yet December, An' we're livin' by the day.

'Most any one can stand it— What jest TO-DAY has brought. It's when we try to lump it, An' take it by the lot!

Why, any back would double, An' any legs'll bend, If we pile on all the trouble Meant to last us till the end!

So if we'll jest remember, Half the woe from life we'll rob If we'll only take it "by the day," An' not live it "by the job."

"Of course that ''tisn't yet December' is poem license, and hain't really got much sense to it," wrote Susan in the letter she sent with the verses. "I put it in mostly to rhyme with 'remember.' (There simply wasn't a thing to rhyme with that word!) But, do you know, after I got it down I saw it really could mean somethin', after all— kind of diabolical-like for the end of life, you know, like December is the end of the year.

"Well, anyhow, they done me lots of good, them verses did, an' I hope they will you."

In June Dorothy Parkman was graduated from the Hinsdale Academy. Both Mr. Burton and Susan attended the exercises, though not together. Then Susan sat down and wrote a glowing account of the affair to Keith, dilating upon the fine showing that "your Miss Stewart" made.

"It can't last forever, of course—this subtractin' Miss Stewart's name for Dorothy Parkman," she said to Mr. Burton, when she handed him the letter to mail. "But I'm jest bound an' determined it shall last till that there Paris doctor gets his hands on him. An' she ain't goin' back now to her father's for quite a spell—Miss Dorothy, I mean," further explained Susan. "I guess she don't want to take no chances herself of his findin' out—jest yet," declared Susan, with a sage wag of her head. "Anyhow, she's had an inspiration to go see a girl down to the beach, an' she's goin'. So we're safe for a while. But, oh, if July'd only hurry up an' come!"

And yet, when July came—

They were so glad, afterward, that Dr. Stewart wrote the letter that in a measure prepared them for the bad news. He wrote the day before the operation. He said that the great oculist was immensely interested in the case and eager to see what he could do—though he could hold out no sort of promise that he would be able to accomplish the desired results. Dr. Stewart warned them, therefore, not to expect anything— though, of course, they might hope. Hard on the heels of the letter came the telegram. The operation had been performed—and had failed, they feared. They could not tell surely, however, until the bandages were removed, which would be early in August. But even if it had failed, there was yet one more chance, the doctor wrote. He would say nothing about that, however, until he was obliged to.

In August he wrote about it. He was obliged to. The operation had been so near a failure that they might as well call it that. The Paris oculist, however, had not given up hope. There was just one man in the world who might accomplish the seemingly impossible and give back sight to Keith's eyes—at least a measure of sight, he said. This man lived in London. He had been singularly successful in several of the few similar cases known to the profession. Therefore, with their kind permission, the great Paris doctor would take Keith back with him to his brother oculist in London. He would like to take ship at once, as soon as arrangements could possibly be made. There would be delay enough, anyway, as it was. So far as any question of pay was concerned, the indebtedness would be on their side entirely if they were privileged to perform the operation, for each new case of this very rare malady added knowledge of untold value to the profession, hence to humanity in general. He begged, therefore, a prompt word of permission from Keith's father.

"Don't you give it, don't you give it!" chattered Susan, with white lips, when the proposition was made clear to her.

"Why, Susan, I thought you'd be willing to try anything, ANYTHING—for Keith's sake."

"An' so I would, sir, anything in season. But not this. Do you think I'd set that blessed boy afloat on top of them submarines an' gas- mines, an' to go to London for them German Zepherin's to rain down bombs an' shrapnel on his head, an' he not bein' able to see a thing to dodge 'em when he sees 'em comin'? Why, Daniel Burton, I'm ashamed of you—to think of it, for a minute!"

"There, there, Susan, that will do. You mean well, I know; but this is a matter that I shall have to settle for myself, for myself," he muttered with stern dignity, rising to his feet. Yet when he left the room a moment later, head and shoulders bowed, he looked so old and worn that Susan, gazing after him, put a spasmodic hand to her throat.

"An' I jest know I'm goin' to lose 'em both now," she choked as she turned away.

Keith went to London. Then came more weeks of weary, anxious waiting. Letters were not so regular now, nor so frequent. Definite news was hard to obtain. Yet in the end it came all too soon—and it was piteously definite.

Keith was coming home. The great London doctor, too, had—failed.



CHAPTER XX

WITH CHIN UP

Keith came in April. The day before he was expected, Susan, sweeping off the side porch, was accosted by Mrs. McGuire.

It was the first warm spring-like day, and Mrs. McGuire, bareheaded and coatless, had opened the back-yard gate and was picking her way across the spongy turf.

"My, but isn't this a great day, Susan!" she called, with an ecstatic, indrawn breath. "I only wish it was as nice under foot."

"Hain't you got no rubbers on?" Susan's disapproving eyes sought Mrs. McGuire's feet.

Mrs. McGuire laughed lightly.

"No. That's the one thing I leave off the first possible minute. Some way, I feel as if I was helpin' along the spring."

"Humph! Well, I should help along somethin' 'sides spring, I guess, if I did it. Besides, it strikes me rubbers ain't the only thing you're leavin' off." Susan's disapproving eyes had swept now to Mrs. McGuire's unprotected head and shoulders.

"Oh, I'm not cold. I love it. As if this glorious spring sunshine could do any one any harm! Susan, it's LIEUTENANT McGuire, now! I came over to tell you. My John's been promoted."

"Sho, you don't say! Ain't that wonderful, now?" Susan's broom stopped in midair,

"Not when you know my John!" The proud mother lifted her head a little. "'For bravery an' valiant service'—Lieutenant McGuire! Oh Susan, Susan, but I'm the proud woman this mornin'!"

"Yes, of course, of course, I ain't wonderin' you be!" Susan drew a long sigh and fell to sweeping again.

Mrs. McGuire, looking into Susan's face, came a step nearer. Her own face sobered.

"An' me braggin' like this, when you folks-! I know—you're thinkin' of that poor blind boy. An' it's just to-morrow that he comes, isn't it?"

Susan nodded dumbly.

"An' it's all ended now an' decided—he can't ever see, I s'pose," went on Mrs. McGuire. "I heard 'em talkin' down to the store last night. It seems terrible."

"Yes, it does." Susan was sweeping vigorously now, over and over again in the same place.

"I wonder how—he'll take it."

Susan stopped sweeping and turned with a jerk.

"Take it? He's got to take it, hain't he?" she demanded fiercely. "He's GOT TO! An' things you've got to do, you do. That's all. You'll see. Keith Burton ain't no quitter. He'll take it with his head up an' his shoulders braced. I know. You'll see. Don't I remember the look on his blessed face that day he went away, an' stood on them steps there, callin' back his cheery good-bye?"

"But, Susan, there was hope then, an' there isn't any now—an' you haven't seen him since. You forget that."

"No, I don't," retorted Susan doggedly. "I ain't forgettin' nothin'. 'But you'll see!"

"An' he's older. He realizes more. Why, he must be—How old is he, anyway?"

"He'll be nineteen next June."

"Almost a man. Poor boy, poor boy—an' him with all these years of black darkness ahead of him! I tell you, Susan, I never appreciated my eyes as I have since Keith lost his. Seems as though anybody that's got their eyes hadn't ought to complain of—anything. I was thinkin' this mornin', comin' over, how good it was just to SEE the blue sky an' the sunshine an' the little buds breakin' through their brown jackets. Why, Susan, I never realized how good just seein' was—till I thought of Keith, who can't never see again."

"Yes. Well, I've got to go in now, Mis' McGuire. Good-bye."

Words, manner, and tone of voice were discourtesy itself; but Mrs. McGuire, looking at Susan's quivering face, brimming eyes, and set lips, knew it for what it was and did not mistake it for—discourtesy. But because she knew Susan would prefer it so, she turned away with a light "Yes, so've I. Good-bye!" which gave no sign that she had seen and understood.

Dr. Stewart came himself with Keith to Hinsdale and accompanied him to the house. It had been the doctor's own suggestion that neither the boy's father nor Susan should meet them at the train. Perhaps the doctor feared for that meeting. Naturally it would not be an easy one. Naturally too, he did not want to add one straw to Keith's already grievous burden. So he had written:

I will come to the house. As I am a little uncertain as to the train I can catch from Boston, do not try to meet me at the station.

"Jest as if we couldn't see through that subterranean!" Susan had muttered to herself over the dishes that morning. "I guess he knows what train he's goin' to take all right. He jest didn't want us to meet him an' make a scenic at the depot. I wonder if he thinks I would! Don't he think I knows anything?"

But, after all, it was very simple, very quiet, very ordinary. Dr. Stewart rang the bell and Susan went to the door. And there they stood: Keith, big and strong and handsome (Susan had forgotten that two years could transform a somewhat awkward boy into so fine and stalwart a youth); the doctor, pale, and with an apprehensive uncertainty in his eyes.

"Well, Susan, how are you?" Keith's voice was strong and steady, and the outstretched hand gripped hers with a clasp that hurt.

Then, in some way never quite clear to her, Susan found herself in the big living-room with Keith and the doctor and Daniel Burton, all shaking hands and all talking at once. They sat down then, and their sentences became less broken, less incoherent. But they said only ordinary things about the day, the weather, the journey home, John McGuire, the war, the President's message, the entry of the United States into the conflict. There was nothing whatever said about eyes that could see or eyes that could not see, or operations that failed.

And by and by the doctor got up and said that he must go. To be sure, the good-byes were a little hurriedly spoken, and the voices were at a little higher pitch than was usual; and when the doctor had gone, Keith and his father went at once upstairs to the studio and shut the door.

Susan went out into the kitchen then and took up her neglected work. She made a great clatter of pans and dishes, and she sang lustily at her "mad song," and at several others. But every now and then, between songs and rattles, she would stop and listen intently; and twice she climbed halfway up the back stairs and stood poised, her breath suspended, her anxious eyes on that closed studio door.

Yet supper that night was another very ordinary occurrence, with Keith and his father talking of the war and Susan waiting upon them with a cheerfulness that was almost obtrusive.

In her own room that night, however, Susan addressed an imaginary Keith, all in the dark.

"You're fine an' splendid, an' I love you for it, Keith, my boy," she choked; "but you don't fool your old Susan. Your chin is up, jest as I said 'twould be, an' you're marchin' straight ahead. But inside, your heart is breakin'. Do you think I don't KNOW? But we ain't goin' to let each other KNOW we know, Keith, my boy. Not much we ain't! An' I guess if you can march straight ahead with your chin up, the rest of us can, all right. We'll see!"

And Susan was singing again the next morning when she did her breakfast dishes.

At ten o'clock Keith came into the kitchen.

"Where's dad, Susan? He isn't in the studio and I've looked in every room in the house and I can't find him anywhere." Keith spoke with the aggrieved air of one who has been deprived of his just rights.

Susan's countenance changed. "Why, Keith, don't you—that is, your father—Didn't he tell you?" stammered Susan.

"Tell me what?"

"Why, that—that he was goin' to be away."

"No, he didn't. What do you mean? Away where? How long?"

"Why, er—working."

"Sketching?—in this storm? Nonsense, Susan! Besides, he'd have taken me. He always took me. Susan, what's the matter? Where IS dad?" A note of uncertainty, almost fear, had crept into the boy's voice. "You're keeping—SOMETHING from me."

Susan caught her breath and threw a swift look into Keith's unseeing eyes. Then she laughed, hysterically, a bit noisily.

"Keepin' somethin' from you? Why, sure we ain't, boy! Didn't I jest tell you? He's workin' down to McGuire's."

"WORKING! Down to MCGUIRE'S!" Keith plainly did not yet understand.

"Sure! An' he's got a real good position, too." Susan spoke jauntily, enthusiastically.

"But the McGuires never buy pictures," frowned Keith, "or want—" He stopped short. Face, voice, and manner underwent a complete change. "Susan, you don't mean that dad is CLERKING down there behind that grocery counter!"

Susan saw and recognized the utter horror and dismay in Keith's lace, and quailed before it. But she managed in some way to keep her voice still triumphant.

"Sure he is! An' he gets real good wages, too, an'—" But Keith with a low cry had gone.

Before the noon dinner, however, he appeared again at the kitchen door. His face was very white now.

"Susan, how long has dad been doing this?"

"Oh, quite a while. Funny, now! Hain't he ever told you?"

"No. But there seem to be quite a number of things that you people haven't told me."

Susan winced, but she still held her ground jauntily.

"Oh, yes, quite a while," she nodded cheerfully. "An' he gets-"

"But doesn't he paint any more—at all?" interrupted the boy sharply.

"Why, no; no, I don't know that he does," tossed Susan airily. "An' of course, if he's found somethin' he likes better—"

"Susan, you don't have to talk like that to me" interposed Keith quietly. "I understand, of course. There are some things that can be seen without—eyes."

"Oh, but honest, Keith, he—" But once again Keith had gone and Susan found herself talking to empty air.

When Susan went into the dining-room that evening to wait at dinner, she went with fear and trepidation, and she looked apprehensively into the faces of the two men sitting opposite each other. But in the kitchen, a few minutes later, she muttered to herself:

"Pooh! I needn't have worried. They've got sense, both of 'em, an' they know that what's got to be has got to be. That's all. An' that it don't do no good to fuss. I needn't have worried."

But Susan did worry. She did not like the look on Keith's face. She did not like the nervous twitching of his hands. She did not like the exaggerated cheerfulness of his manner.

And Keith WAS cheerful. He played solitaire with his marked cards and whistled. He worked at his raised-picture puzzles and sang snatches of merry song. He talked with anybody who came near him—talked very fast and laughed a great deal. But behind the whistling and the singing and the laughter Susan detected a tense strain and nervousness that she did not like. And at times, when she knew Keith thought himself alone, there was an expression on his face that disturbed Susan not a little.

But because, outwardly, it was all "cheerfulness," Susan kept her peace; but she also kept her eyes on Keith.



CHAPTER XXI

THE LION

Keith had not been home a week before it was seen that Hinsdale was inclined to make a lion of the boy.

Women brought him jelly and fruit, and men clapped him on the shoulder and said, "How are you, my boy?" in voices that were not quite steady. Young girls brought him flowers, and asked Susan if they could not read or sing or do SOMETHING to amuse him. Children stood about the gate and stared, talking in awe-struck whispers, happy if they could catch a glimpse of his face at the window.

A part of this Susan succeeded in keeping from Keith—Susan had a well-founded belief that Keith would not care to be a lion. But a great deal of it came to his knowledge, of course, in spite of anything she could do. However, she told herself that she need not have worried, for if Keith had recognized it for what it was, he made no sign; and even Susan herself could find no fault with his behavior. He was cordial, cheery, almost gay, outwardly. But inwardly—

Susan was still keeping her eyes on Keith.

Mrs. McGuire came often to see Keith. She said she knew he would want to hear John's letters. And there were all the old ones, besides the new ones that came from time to time. She brought them all, and read them to him. She talked about the young soldier, too, a great deal, to the blind boy—She explained to Susan that she wanted to do everything she could to get him out of himself and interest him in the world outside; and that she didn't know any better way to do it than to tell him of these brave soldiers who were doing something so really worth while in the world.

"An' he's so interested—the dear boy!" she concluded, with a sigh. "An' so brave! I think he's the bravest thing I ever saw, Susan Betts."

"Yes, he is—brave," said Susan, a little shortly—so shortly that Mrs. McGuire opened her eyes a bit, and wondered why Susan's lips had snapped tight shut in that straight, hard line.

"But what ails the woman?" she muttered to herself, vexedly, as she crossed the back yard to her own door. "Wasn't she herself always braggin' about his bein' so brave? Humph! There's no such thing as pleasin' some folks, it seems!" finished Mrs. McGuire as she entered her own door.

But Mrs. McGuire was not the only frequent caller. There was Mazie Sanborn.

Mazie began by coming every two or three days with flowers and fudge. Then she brought the latest novel one day and suggested that she read it to Keith.

Susan was skeptical of this, even fearful. She had not forgotten Keith's frenzied avoidance of such callers in the old days. But to her surprise now Keith welcomed Mazie joyously—so joyously that Susan began to suspect that behind the joyousness lay an eagerness to welcome anything that would help him to forget himself.

She was the more suspicious of this during the days that followed, as she saw this same nervous eagerness displayed every time any one called at the house. Susan's joy then at Keith's gracious response to visitors' attentions changed to a vague uneasiness. Behind and beyond it all lay an intangible something upon which Susan could not place her finger, but which filled her heart with distrust. And so still she kept her eyes on Keith.

In June Dorothy Parkman came to Hinsdale. She came at once to see Susan. But she would only step inside the hall, and she spoke low and hurriedly, looking fearfully toward the closed doors beyond the stairway.

"I HAD to come—to see how he was," she began, a little breathlessly. "And I wanted to ask you if you thought I could do any good or—or be any help to him, either as Miss Stewart or Dorothy Parkman. Only I—I suppose I would HAVE to be Dorothy Parkman now. I couldn't keep the other up forever, of course. But I don't know how to tell—" She stopped, and looked again fearfully toward the closed doors. "Susan, how—how IS he?" she finished unsteadily.

"He's well—very well."

"He sees people—Mazie says he sees everybody now.

'Yes, oh, yes, he sees people."

'That's why I thought perhaps he wouldn't mind ME now—I mean the real me," faltered the girl wistfully. "Maybe." Susan's sigh and frown expressed doubt.

"But he's real brave," challenged the girl quickly. "Mazie SAID he was."

"I know. Everybody says—he's brave." There was an odd constraint in Susan's voice, but the girl was too intent on her own problem to notice it.

"And that's why I hoped—about me, you know—that he wouldn't mind— now. And, of course, it can't make any difference—about his eyes, for he doesn't need father, or—or any one now." Her voice broke. "Oh, Susan, I want to help, some way, if I can! WOULD he see me, do you think?"

"He ought to. He sees everybody else."

"I know. Mazie says—"

"Does Mazie know about you?" interrupted Susan. "I mean, about your being 'Miss Stewart'?"

"A little, but not much. I told her once that he 'most always called me 'Miss Stewart,' but I never made anything of it, and I never told her how much I saw of him out home. Some way, I—" She stopped short, with a quick indrawing of her breath. In the doorway down the hall stood Keith.

"Susan, I thought I heard—WAS Miss Stewart here?" he demanded excitedly.

With only the briefest of hesitations and a half-despairing, half- relieved look into Susan's startled eyes, the young girl hurried forward.

"Indeed I'm here," she cried gayly, giving a warm clasp to his eagerly outstretched hand "How do you do? Susan was just saying—."

But Susan was gone with upflung hands and a look that said "No, you don't rake me into this thing, young lady!" as plainly as if she had spoken the words themselves.

In the living-room a minute later, Keith began eager questioning.

"When did you come?"

"Yesterday."

"And you came to see me the very next day! Weren't you good? You knew how I wanted to see you."

"Oh, but I didn't," she laughed a little embarrassedly. "You're at home now, and you have all your old friends, and—"

"But they're not you. There's not any one like you," cut in the youth fervently. "And now you're going to stay a long time, aren't you?"

"Y-yes, several weeks, probably."

"Good! And you'll come every day to see me?"

"W-well, as to that-"

"It's too much to ask, of course," broke off Keith contritely. "And, truly, I don't want to impose on you."

"No, no, it isn't that," protested the girl quickly. "It's only—There are so many—"

"But I told you there isn't anybody like you, Miss Stewart. There isn't any one here that UNDERSTANDS—like you. And it was you who first taught me to do—so many things." His voice faltered.



He paused, wet his lips, then plunged on hurriedly. "Miss Stewart, I don't say this sort of thing very often. I never said it before—to anybody. But I want you to know that I understood and appreciated just what you were doing all those weeks for me out there at the sanatorium. And it was the WAY you did it, with never a word or a hint that I was different. You did things, and you made me do things, without reminding me all the time that I was blind. I shall never forget that first day when you told me dad would want to hear from me; and then, before I could say a word, you put that paper in my hands, and my fingers fell on those lines that I could feel. And how I blessed you for not TELLING me those lines were there! Don't you see? Everybody here, that comes to see me, TELLS me—the lines are there."

"Yes, I—know." The girl's voice was low, a little breathless.

"And that's why I need you so much. If anybody in the whole world can make me forget for a minute, you can. You will come?"

"Why, of course, I'll come, and be glad to. You know I will. And I'm so glad if I've helped—any!"

"You've helped more—than you'll ever know. But, come—look! I've got a dandy new game here." And Keith, very obviously to hide the shake in his voice and the emotion in his face, turned gayly to a little stand near him and picked up a square cardboard box.

Half an hour later, Dorothy Parkman, passing through the hall on her way to the outer door, was waylaid by Susan.

"Sh-h! Don't speak here, but come with me," she whispered, leading the way through the diningroom. In the kitchen she stopped and turned eagerly. "Well, did you tell him?" she demanded.

Miss Dorothy shook her head, mutely, despairingly.

"You mean he don't know yet that you're Dorothy Parkman?"

"I mean just that."

"But, child alive, he'll find out—he can't help finding out—now."

"I know it. But I just couldn't tell him—I COULDN'T, Susan. I tried to do it two or three times. Indeed, I did. But the words just wouldn't come. And now I don't know when I can tell him."

"But he was tickled to death to see you. He showed it, Miss Dorothy."

"I know." A soft pink suffused the young girl's face. "But it was 'Miss Stewart' he was glad to see, not Dorothy Parkman. And, after the things he said—" She stopped and looked back over her shoulder toward the room she had just left.

"But, Miss Dorothy, don't you see? It'll be all right, now. You've SHOWN him that you don't mind being with blind folks a mite. So now he won't care a bit when he knows you are Dorothy Parkman."

But the girl shook her head again.

"Yes, I know. He might not mind that part, PERHAPS; but I know he'd mind the deceit all these long months, and it wouldn't be easy to—to make him understand. He'd never forgive it—I know he wouldn't—to think I'd taken advantage of his not being able to see."

"Nonsense! Of course he would."

"He wouldn't. You don't know. Just to-day he said something about— about some one who had tried to deceive him in a little thing, because he was blind; and I could see how bitter he was."

"But what ARE you goin' to do?"

"I don't know, Susan. It's harder than ever now," almost moaned the girl.

"You're COMIN' AGAIN?"

"Yes, oh, yes. I shall come as long as he'll let me. I know he wants me to. I know I HAVE helped a little. He spoke—beautifully about that to-day. But, whether, after he finds out—" Her voice choked into silence and she turned her head quite away.

"There, there, dear, don't you fret," Susan comforted her. "You jest go home and think no more about it.

When thinkin' won't mend it, Then thinkin' won't end it.

So what's the use? When you get ready, you jest come again; an' you keep a-comin', too. It'll all work out right. You see if it don't."

"Thank you, Susan. Oh, I'll come as long as I can," sighed the girl, turning to go. "But I'm not so sure how it'll turn out," she finished with a wistful smile over her shoulder as she opened the door.



CHAPTER XXII

HOW COULD YOU, MAZIE?

As Miss Dorothy herself had said, it could not, of course, continue. She came once, and once again to see Keith; and in spite of her efforts to make her position clear to him, her secret still remained her own. Then, on the third visit, the dreaded disclosure came, naturally, and in the simplest, most unexpected way; yet in a way that would most certainly have been the last choice of Miss Dorothy herself could she have had aught to say about it.

The two, Keith and Dorothy, had had a wonderful hour over a book that Dorothy had brought to read. They had been sitting on the porch, and Dorothy had risen to go when there came a light tread on the front walk and Mazie Sanborn tripped up the porch steps.

"Well, Dorothy Parkman, is this where you were?" she cried gayly. "I was hunting all over the house for you half an hour ago."

"DOROTHY PARKMAN!" Keith was on his feet. His face had grown very white.

Dorothy, too, her eyes on Keith's face, had grown very white; yet she managed to give a light laugh, and her voice matched Mazie's own for gayety.

"Were you? Well, I was right here. But I'm going now."

"You! but—Miss Stewart!" Keith's colorless lips spoke the words just above his breath.

"Why, Keith Burton, what's the matter?" laughed Mazie. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost. I mean—oh, forgive that word, Keith," she broke off in light apology. "I'm always forgetting, and talking as if you could really SEE. But you looked so funny, and you brought out that 'Dorothy Parkman' with such a surprised air. Just as if you didn't ever call her that in the old school days, Keith Burton! Oh, Dorothy told me you called her 'Miss Stewart' a lot now; but—"

"Yes, I have called her 'Miss Stewart' quite a lot lately," interposed Keith, in a voice so quietly self-controlled that even Dorothy herself was almost deceived. But not quite. Dorothy saw the clenched muscles and white knuckles of his hands as he gripped the chair-back before him; and she knew too much to expect him to offer his hand in good- bye. So she backed away, and she still spoke lightly, inconsequently, though she knew her voice was shaking, as she made her adieus.

"Well, good-bye, I must be going now, sure. I'll be over to-morrow, though, to finish the book. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Keith.

And Dorothy wondered if Mazie noticed that he quite omitted a polite "Come again," and if Mazie saw that as he said the terse "Good-bye" he put both hands suddenly and resolutely behind his back. Dorothy saw it, and at home, long hours later she was still crying over it.

She went early to the Burtons' the next forenoon.

"I came to finish the book I was reading to Mr. Keith," she told Susan brightly, as her ring was answered. "I thought I'd come early before anybody else got here."

She would have stepped in, but Susan's ample figure still barred the way.

"Well, now, that's too bad!" Susan's voice expressed genuine concern and personal disappointment. "Ain't it a shame? Keith said he wa'n't feelin' nohow well this mornin', an' that he didn't want to see no one. An' under no circumstances not to let no one in to see him. But maybe if I told him't was you—"

"No, no, don't—don't do that!" cried the girl hurriedly. "I—I'll come again some other time."

On the street a minute later she whispered tremulously: "He did it on purpose, of course. He KNEW I would come this morning! But he can't keep it up forever! He'll HAVE to see me some time. And when he does— Oh, if only Mazie Sanborn hadn't blurted it out like that! Why didn't I tell him? Why didn't I tell him? But I will tell him. He can't keep this up forever."

When on a second and a third and a fourth morning, however, Dorothy had found Susan's figure barring the way, and had received the same distressed "He says he won't see no one, Miss Dorothy," from Susan's plainly troubled lips, Dorothy began to think Keith did mean to keep it up forever.

"But what IS it, Susan?" she faltered. "Is he sick, really sick?"

"I don't know, Miss Dorothy," frowned Susan. "But I don't like the looks of it, anyhow. He says he ain't sick—not physicianly sick; but he jest don't want to talk an' see folks. An' he's been like that 'most a week now. An' I'm free to confess I don't like it."

"But what does he do—all day?" asked the girl.

"Nothin', that I can see," sighed Susan profoundly. "Oh, he plays that solitary some, an' putters a little with some of his raised books; but mostly he jest sits still an' thinks. An' I don't like it. If only his father was here. But with him gone peddlin' molasses, an' no one 'lowed into the house, there ain't anything for him to do but to think. An' 'tain't right nor good for him. I've watched him an' I know."

"But he used to see people, Susan."

"I know it. He saw everybody."

"Do you know why he won't—now?" asked the girl a little faintly.

"I hain't the faintest inception of an idea. It came as sudden as that," declared Susan, snapping her finger.

"Then he hasn't said anything special about not wanting to see—me?"

"Why, no. He—Do you mean—HAS he found out?" demanded Susan, interrupting herself excitedly.

"Yes. He found out last Monday afternoon. Mazie ran up on to the porch and called me by name right out. Oh, Susan, it was awful. I shall never forget the look on that boy's face as long as I live."

"Lan' sakes! MONDAY!" breathed Susan. "An' Tuesday he began refusin' to see folks. Then 'course that was it. But why won't he see other folks? They hain't anything to do with you."

"I don't know—unless he didn't want to tell you specially not to let me in, and so he said not to let anybody in."

"Was he awful mad?"

"It wasn't so much anger as it was grief and hurt and—oh, I can't express what it was. But I saw it; and I never shall forget it. You see, to have it blurted out to him like that without any warning—and of course he couldn't understand."

"But didn't you explain things—how 'twas, in the first place?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't—not with Mazie there. I said I'd come the next morning to—to finish the book. I thought he'd understand I was going to explain then. He probably did—and that's why he won't let me in. He doesn't want any explanations," sighed the girl tremulously.

"Well, he ought to want 'em," asserted Susan with vigor. "'Tain't fair nor right nor sensible for him to act like this, makin' a mountain out of an ant-hill. I declare, Miss Dorothy, he ought to be made to see you."

The girl flushed and drew back.

"Most certainly not, Susan! I—I am not in the habit of MAKING people see me, when they don't wish to. Do you suppose I'm going to beg and tease: 'PLEASE won't you let me see you?' Hardly! He need not worry. I shall not come again."

"Oh, Miss Dorothy!" remonstrated Susan.

"Why, of course I won't, Susan!" cried the girl. "Do you suppose I'm going to keep him from seeing other people just because he's afraid he'll have to let me in, too? Nonsense, Susan! Even you must admit I cannot allow that. You may tell Mr. Keith, please, that he may feel no further uneasiness. I shall not trouble him again."

"Oh, Miss Dorothy!" begged Susan agitatedly, once more.

But Miss Dorothy, with all the hurt dignity of her eighteen years, turned haughtily away, leaving Susan impotent and distressed, looking after her.

Two minutes later Susan sought Keith in the living-room. Her whole self spelt irate determination—but Keith could not see that. Keith, listless and idle-handed, sat in his favorite chair by the window.

"Dorothy Parkman jest rang the bell," began Susan, "an'-"

"But I said I'd see no one," interrupted Keith, instantly alert.

"That's what I told her, an' she's gone."

"Oh, all right." Keith relaxed into his old listlessness.

"An' she said to please tell you she'd trouble you no further, so you might let in the others now as soon as you please."

Keith sat erect in his chair with a jerk.

"What did she mean by that?"

"I guess you don't need me to tell you," observed Susan grimly.

With a shrug and an irritable gesture Keith settled back in his chair.

"I don't care to discuss it, Susan. I don't wish to see ANY one. We'll let it go at that, if you please," he said.

"But I don't please!" Susan was in the room now, close to Keith's chair. Her face was quivering with emotion. "Keith, won't you listen to reason? It ain't like you a mite to sit back like this an' refuse to see a nice little body like Dorothy Parkman, what's been so kind—"

"Susan!" Keith was sitting erect again. His face was white, and carried a stern anguish that Susan had never seen before. "I don't care to discuss Miss Parkman with you or with anybody else. Neither do I care to discuss the fact that I thoroughly understand, of course, that you, or she, or anybody else, can fool me into believing anything you please; and I can't—help myself."

"No, no, Keith, don't take it like that—please don't!"

"Is there any other way I CAN take it? Do you think 'Miss Stewart' could have made such a fool of me if I'd had EYES to see Dorothy Parkman?"

"But she was only tryin' to HELP you, an'—"

"I don't want to be 'helped'!" stormed the boy hotly. "Did it ever occur to you, Susan, that I might sometimes like to HELP somebody myself, instead of this everlastingly having somebody help me?"

"But you do help. You help me," asserted Susan feverishly, working her nervous fingers together. "An' you'd help me more if you'd only let folks in to see you, an'—"

"All right, all right," interrupted Keith testily. "Let them in. Let everybody in. I don't care. What's the difference? But, please, PLEASE, Susan, stop talking any more about it all now."

And Susan stopped. There were times when Susan knew enough to stop, and this was one of them.

But she took him at his word, and when Mrs. McGuire came the next day with a letter from her John, Susan ushered her into the living-room where Keith was sitting alone. And Keith welcomed her with at least a good imitation of his old heartiness.

Mrs. McGuire said she had such a funny letter to read to-day. She knew he'd enjoy it, and Susan would, too, particularly the part that John had quoted from something that had been printed by the British soldiers in France and circulated among their comrades in the trenches and hospitals, and everywhere. John had written it off on a separate piece of paper, and this was it:

Don't worry: there's nothing to worry about.

You have two alternatives: either you are mobilized or you are not. If not, you have nothing to worry about.

If you are mobilized, you have two alternatives: you are in camp or at the front. If you are in camp, you have nothing to worry about.

If you are at the front, you have two alternatives: either you are on the fighting line or in reserve. If in reserve, you have nothing to worry about.

If you are on the fighting line, you have two alternatives: either you fight or you don't. If you don't, you have nothing to worry about.

If you do, you have two alternatives: either you get hurt or you don't. If you don't, you have nothing to worry about.

If you are hurt, you have two alternatives: either you are slightly hurt or badly. If slightly, you have nothing to worry about.

If badly, you have two alternatives: either you recover or you don't. If you recover, you have nothing to worry about. If you don't, and have followed my advice clear through, you have done with worry forever.

Mrs. McGuire was in a gale of laughter by the time she had finished reading this; so, too, was Susan. Keith also was laughing, but his laughter did not have the really genuine ring to it—which fact did not escape Susan.

"Well, anyhow, he let Mis' McGuire in—an' that's somethin'," she muttered to herself, as Mrs. McGuire took her departure. "Besides, he talked to her real pleasant—an' that's more."

As the days passed, others came, also, and Keith talked with them. He even allowed Dorothy Parkman to be admitted one day.



Dorothy had not come until after long urging on the part of Susan and the assurance that Keith had said he would see her. Even then nothing would have persuaded her, she told Susan, except the great hope that she could say something, in some way, that would set her right in Keith's eyes.

So with fear and trembling and with a painful embarrassment on her face, but with a great hope in her heart, she entered the room and came straight to Keith's side.

For a moment the exultation of a fancied success sent a warm glow all through her, for Keith had greeted her pleasantly and even extended his hand. But almost at once the glow faded and the great hope died in her heart, for she saw that even while she touched his hand, he was yet miles away from her.

He laughed and talked with her—oh, yes; but he laughed too much and talked too much. He gave her almost no chance to say anything herself. And what he said was so inconsequential and so far removed from anything intimately concerning themselves, that the girl found it utterly impossible to make the impassioned explanation which she had been saying over and over again all night to herself, and from which she had hoped so much.

Yet at the last, just before she bade him good-bye, she did manage to say something. But in her disappointment and excitement and embarrassment, her words were blurted out haltingly and ineffectually, and they were not at all the ones she had practiced over and over to herself in the long night watches; nor were they received as she had palpitatingly pictured that they would be, with Keith first stern and hurt, and then just dear and forgiving and UNDERSTANDING.

Keith was neither stern nor hurt. He still laughed pleasantly, and he tossed her whole labored explanation aside with a light: "Certainly— of course—to be sure—not at all! You did quite right, I assure you!" And then he remarked that it was a warm day, wasn't it? And Dorothy found herself hurrying down the Burton front walk with burning cheeks and a chagrined helplessness that left her furious and with an ineffably cheap feeling—yet not able to put her finger on any discourteous flaw in Keith's punctilious politeness.

"I wish I'd never said a word—not a word," she muttered hotly to herself as she hurried down the street. "I wonder if he thinks—I'll ever open my head to him about it again. Well, he needn't—worry! But —oh, Keith, Keith, how could you?" she choked brokenly. Then abruptly she turned down a side street, lest Mazie Sanborn, coming toward her, should see the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks.



CHAPTER XXIII

JOHN McGUIRE

So imperative was the knock at the kitchen door at six o'clock that July morning that Susan almost fell down the back stairs in her haste to obey the summons.

"Lan' sakes, Mis' McGuire, what a start you did give—why, Mis' McGuire, what is it?" she interrupted herself, aghast, as Mrs. McGuire, white-faced and wild-eyed, swept past her and began to pace up and down the kitchen floor, moaning frenziedly:

"It's come—it's come—I knew't would come. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"

"What's come?"

"Oh, John, John, my boy, my boy!"

"You don't mean he's—dead?"

"No, no, worse than that, worse than that!" moaned the woman, wringing her hands. "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?"

With a firm grasp Susan caught the twisting fingers and gently but resolutely forced their owner into a chair.

"Do? You'll jest calm yourself right down an' tell me all about it, Mis' McGuire. This rampagin' 'round the kitchen like this don't do no sort of good, an' it's awful on your nerves. An' furthermore an' moreover, no matter what't is that ails your John, it can't be worse'n death; for while there's life there's hope, you know."

"But it is, it is, I tell you," sobbed Mrs. McGuire still swaying her body back and forth. "Susan, my boy is—BLIND." With the utterance of the dread word Mrs. McGuire stiffened suddenly into rigid horror, her eyes staring straight into Susan's.

"MIS' MCGUIRE!" breathed Susan in dismay; then hopefully, "But maybe 'twas a mistake."

The woman shook her head. She went back to her swaying from side to side.

"No, 'twas a dispatch. It came this mornin'. Just now. Mr. McGuire was gone, an' there wasn't anybody there but the children, an' they're asleep. That's why I came over. I HAD to. I had to talk to some one!"

"Of course, you did! An' you shall, you poor lamb. You shall tell me all about it. What was it? What happened?"

"I don't know. I just know he's blind, an' that he's comin' home. He's on his way now. My John—blind! Oh, Susan, what shall I do, what shall I do?"

"Then he probably ain't sick, or hurt anywheres else, if he's on his way home—leastways, he ain't hurt bad. You can be glad for that, Mis' McGuire."

"I don't know, I don't know. Maybe he is. It didn't say. It just said blinded," chattered Mrs. McGuire feverishly. "They get them home just as soon as they can when they're blinded. We were readin' about it only yesterday in the paper—how they did send 'em home right away. Oh, how little I thought that my son John would be one of 'em—my John!"

"But your John ain't the only one, Mis' McGuire. There's other Johns, too. Look at our Keith here."

"I know, I know."

"An' I wonder how he'll take this—about your John?"

"HE'LL know what it means," choked Mrs. McGuire.

"He sure will—an' he'll feel bad. I know that. He ain't hisself, anyway, these days."

"He ain't?" Mrs. McGuire asked the question abstractedly, her mind plainly on her own trouble; but Susan, intent on HER trouble, did not need even the question to spur her tongue.

"No, he ain't. Oh, he's brave an' cheerful. He's awful cheerful, even cheerfuler than he was a month ago. He's too cheerful, Mis' McGuire. There's somethin' back of it I don't like. He—"

But Mrs. McGuire was not listening. Wringing her hands she had sprung to her feet and was pacing the floor again, moaning: "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?" A minute later, only weeping afresh at Susan's every effort to comfort her, she stumbled out of the kitchen and hurried across the yard to her own door.

Watching her from the window, Susan drew a long sigh.

"I wonder how he WILL take—But, lan' sakes, this ain't gettin' my breakfast," she ejaculated with a hurried glance at the clock on the little shelf over the stove.

There was nothing, apparently, to distinguish breakfast that morning from a dozen other breakfasts that had gone before. Keith and his father talked cheerfully of various matters, and Susan waited upon them with her usual briskness. If Susan was more silent than usual, and if her eyes sought Keith's face more frequently than was her habit, no one, apparently, noticed it. Susan did fancy, however, that she saw a new tenseness in Keith's face, a new nervousness in his manner; but that, perhaps, was because she was watching him so closely, and because he was so constantly in her mind, owing to her apprehension as to how he would take the news of John McGuire's blindness.