A Compact
"Then I promise you solemnly that your father shall never want for anything while he lives. And now, if there is a chance, will you take it—for me?"
Barbara looked long into the sweet face, glorified by the inner light. Then she leaned forward and put her soft arms around the older woman, hiding her face in the masses of copper-coloured hair.
"For you? A thousand times, yes," she sobbed. "Oh, anything for you!"
Late in the afternoon, when Ambrose North and Barbara were alone again, he came over to her chair and stroked her shining hair with a loving hand.
"Did they tell you, dear?" he asked.
"Yes," whispered Barbara.
"I have dreamed so often that my baby could walk and I could see. He said that the dream should come true if he could make it so."
"Did he say anything about your eyes?" asked Barbara, in astonishment.
Hopeful
"Yes. He thinks there may be a chance there, too. If you are willing, I am to go to the city with him sometime and see a friend of his who is a great specialist."
"Oh, Daddy," cried Barbara. "I'm afraid—for you."
He drew a chair up near hers and sat down. The old hand, in which the pulses moved so slowly, clasped the younger one, warm with life.
"Barbara," he said; "I have never seen my baby."
"I know, Daddy."
"I want to see you, dear."
"And I want you to."
"Then, will you let me go?"
"Perhaps, but it must be—afterward, you know."
"Why?"
"Because, when you see me, I want to be strong and well. I want to be able to walk. You mustn't see the crutches, Daddy—they are ugly things."
"Nothing could be ugly that belongs to you. I made a little song this afternoon, while you and Miriam were talking and I was out alone."
"Tell me."
In a Beautiful Garden
"Once there was a man who had a garden. When he was a child he had played in it, in his youth and early manhood he had worked in it and found pleasure in seeing things grow, but he did not really know what a beautiful garden it was until another walked in it with him and found it fair.
"Together they watched it from Springtime to harvest, finding new beauty in it every day. One night at twilight she whispered to him that some day a perfect flower of their very own was to bloom in the garden. They watched and waited and prayed for it together, but, before it blossomed, the man went blind.
"In the darkness, he could not see the garden, but she was still there, bringing divine consolation with her touch, and whispering to him always of the perfect flower so soon to be their own.
"When it blossomed, the man could not seeit, but the one who walked beside him told him that it was as pure and fair as they had prayed it might be. They enjoyed it together for a year, and he saw it through her eyes.
"Then she went to God's Garden, and he was left desolate and alone. He cared for nothing and for a time even forgot the flower that she had left. Weeds grew among the flowers, nettles and thistles took possession of the walks, and strange vines choked with their tendrils everything that dared to bloom.
A Perfect Flower
"One day, he went out into the intolerable loneliness and desolation, and, groping blindly, he found among the nettles and thistles and weeds the one perfect white blossom. It was cool and soft to his hot hand, it was exquisitely fragrant, and, more than all, it was part of her. Gradually, it eased his pain. He took out the weeds and thistles as best he could, but there was little he could do, for he had left it too long.
"The years went by, but the flower did not fade. Seeking, he always found it; weary, it always refreshed him; starving, it fed his soul. Blind, it gave him sight; weak, it gave him courage; hurt, it brought him balm. At last he lived only because of it, for, in some mysterious way, it seemed to need him, too, and sometimes it even seemed divinely to restore the lost.
"Flower of the Dusk," he said, leaning to Barbara; "what should I have been without you? How could I have borne it all?"
Strength for the Burden
"God suits the burden to the bearer, I think," she answered, softly. "If you have much to bear, it is because you are strong enough to do it nobly and well. Only the weak are allowed to shirk, and shift their load to the shoulders of the strong."
"I know, but, Barbara—suppose——"
"There is nothing to suppose, Daddy. Whatever happened would be the best that could happen. I'm not afraid."
Her voice rang clear and strong. Insensibly, he caught some of her own fine courage and his soul rallied greatly to meet hers. From her height she had summoned him as with a bugle-call, and he had answered.
"The ways of the Everlasting are not our ways," he said, "but I will not be afraid. No, I will not let myself be afraid."
A Summer Evening
The subtle, far-reaching fragrance of a Summer night came through the open window. A cool wind from the hills had set the maple branches to murmuring and hushed the incoming tide as it swept up to the waiting shore. Out in the illimitable darkness of the East, grey surges throbbed like the beating of a troubled heart, but the shore knew only the drowsy croon of a sea that has gone to sleep.
Golden lilies swung their censers softly, and the exquisite incense perfumed the dusk. Fairy lamp-bearers starred the night with glimmering radiance, faintly seen afar. A cricket chirped just outside the window and a ghostly white moth circled around the evening lamp.
Roger sat by the table, with Keats's letters to his beloved Fanny open before him. The letter to Constance, so strangely brought back after all the intervening years, lay beside the book. The ink was faded and the paperwas yellow, but his father's love, for a woman not his mother, stared the son full in the face and was not to be denied.
Was this all, or—? His thought refused to go further. Constance North had died, by her own hand, four days after the letter was written. What might not have happened in four days? In one day, Columbus found a world. In another, electricity was discovered. In one day, one hour, even, some immeasurable force moving according to unseen law might sway the sun and set all the stars to reeling madly through the unutterable midnights of the universe. And in four days? Ah, what had happened in those four days?
A Recurring Question
The question had haunted him since the night he read the letter, when he was reading to Barbara and had unwittingly come upon it. Constance was dead and Laurence Austin was dead, but their love lived on. The grave was closed against it, and in neither heaven nor hell could it find an abiding-place. Ghostly and forbidding, it had sent Constance to haunt Miriam's troubled sleep, it had filled Ambrose North's soul with cruel doubt and foreboding, and had now come back to Roger and Barbara, to ask eternal questions of the one, and stir the heart of the other to new depths of pain.
He had not seen Barbara since that night and she had sent no message. No beaconlight in the window across the way said "come." The sword that had lain, keen-edged and cruel, between Constance and her lover, had, by a single swift stroke, changed everything between her daughter and his son.
Not that Barbara herself was less beautiful or less dear. Roger had missed her more than he realised. When her lovely, changing face had come between his eyes and the musty pages of his law books, while the disturbing Bascom pup cavorted merrily around the office, unheard and unheeded, Roger had ascribed it to the letter that had forced them apart.
The woollen slippers muffled Miss Mattie's step so that Roger did not hear her enter the room. Preoccupied and absorbed, he was staring vacantly out of the window, when a strong, capable hand swooped down beside him, gathering up the book and the letter.
Tremendous Power
"I don't know what it is about your readin', Roger," complained his mother, "that makes you blind and deaf and dumb and practically paralysed. Your pa was the same way. Reckon I'll read a piece myself and see what it is that's so affectin'. It ain't a very big book, but it seems to have tremendous power."
She sat down and began to read aloud, in a curiously unsympathetic voice which grated abominably upon her unwilling listener:
"'Ask yourself, my Love, whether you arenot very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the letter you must write immediately and do all you can to console me in it—make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me—write the softest words and kiss them, that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself, I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form; I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.'
"Ain't that wonderful, Roger? Wants to get drunk on poppies and kiss the writin' and thinks after that he'll be made into a butterfly. Your pa couldn't have been far from bein' a butterfly when he bought this book. There ain't no sense in it. And this—why, it's your pa's writin', Roger! I ain't seen it for years."
Miss Mattie leaned forward in her chair and brought the letter to Constance close to the light. She read it through, calmly, without haste or excitement. Roger's hands gripped the arms of his chair and his face turned ashen. His whole body was tense.
A Moment's Pain
Then, as swiftly as it had come, the moment passed. Miss Mattie took off her spectacles and leaned back in her chairwith great weariness evident in every line of her figure.
Crazy as a Loon
"Roger," she said, sadly, "there's no use in tryin' to conceal it from you any longer. Your pa was crazy—as crazy as a loon. What with buyin' books so steady and readin' of 'em so continual, his mind got unhinged. I've always suspected it, and now I know.
"Your pa gets this book, and reads all this stuff that's been written about 'Fanny,' and he don't see no reason why he shouldn't duplicate it and maybe get it printed. I knew he set great store by books, but it comes to me as a shock that he was allowin' to write 'em. Some of the time he sees he's crazy himself. Didn't you see, there where he says, 'I hope you do not blame me because I went mad'? 'Mad' is the refined word for crazy.
"Then he goes on about eatin' husks and bein' starved. That's what I told him when he insisted on havin' oatmeal cooked for his breakfast every mornin'. I told him humans couldn't expect to live on horse-feed, but, la sakes! He never paid no attention to me. I could set and talk by the hour just as I'm talkin' to you and he wasn't listenin' any more'n you be."
"I am listening, Mother," he assured her, in a forced voice. He could not say with what joyful relief.
"Maybe," she went on, "I'd 'a' been moregentle with your pa if I'd realised just what condition his mind was in. There's a book in the attic full of just such writin' as this. I found it once when I was cleaning, but I never paid no more attention to it. I surmised it was somethin' he was copyin' out of another book that he'd borrowed from the minister, but I see now. The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. If I'd 'a' knowed what it was then, maybe I couldn't have bore it as I can now."
Seizing his opportunity, Roger put the book and the letter aside. Miss Mattie slipped out of its wrapper the paper which Roger had brought to her from the post-office that same night, and began to read. Roger sat back in his chair with his eyes closed, meditating upon the theory of Chance, and wondering if, after all, there was a single controlling purpose behind the extraordinary things that happened.
Inner Turmoil
Miss Mattie wiped her spectacles twice and changed her position three times. Then she got another chair and moved the lamp closer. At last she clucked sharply with her false teeth—always the outward evidence of inner turmoil or displeasure.
"What's the matter, Mother?"
"I can't see with these glasses," she said, fretfully. "I can see a lot better without 'em than I can with 'em."
"Have you wiped them?"
"Yes, I've wiped 'em till it's a wonder the polish ain't all wore off the glass."
"Put them up close to your eyes instead of wearing them so far down on your nose."
"I've tried that, but the closer they get to my eyes, the more I can't see. The further away they are, the better 't is. When I have 'em off, I can see pretty good."
"Then why don't you take them off?"
"That sounds just like your pa. Do you suppose, after payin' seven dollars and ninety cents for these glasses, and more'n twice as much for my gold-bowed ones, that I ain't goin' to use 'em and get the benefit of 'em? Your pa never had no notion of economy. They're just as good as they ever was, and I reckon I'll wear 'em out, if I live."
"But, Mother, your eyes may have changed. They probably have."
Miss Mattie's Eyes
Miss Mattie went to the kitchen and brought back a small, cracked mirror. She studied the offending orbs by the light, very carefully, both with and without her spectacles.
"No, they ain't," she announced, finally. "They're the same size and shape and colour that they've always been, and the specs are the same. Your pa bought 'em for me soon after you commenced readin' out of a reader, and they're just as good as they ever was. It must be the oil. I've noticed that it gets poorer every time the price goes up." Shepushed the paper aside with a sigh. "I was readin' such a nice story, too."
"Shan't I read it to you, Mother?"
"Why, I don't know. Do you want to?"
"Surely, if you want me to."
"Then you'd better begin a new story, because I'm more'n half-way through this one."
"I'll begin right where you left off, Mother. It doesn't make a particle of difference to me."
"But you won't get the sense of it. I'd like for you to enjoy it while you're readin'."
"Don't worry about my enjoying it—you know I've always been fond of books. If there's anything I don't understand, I can ask you."
"All right. Begin right here inTrue Gold, or Pretty Crystal's Love. This is the place: 'With a terrible scream, Crystal sprang toward the fire escape, carrying her mother and her little sister in her arms.'"
Two Sighs
For nearly two hours, Roger read, in a deep, mellow voice, of the adventures of poor, persecuted Crystal, who was only sixteen, and engaged to a floor-walker in 'one of the great city's finest emporiums of trade.' He and his mother both sighed when he came to the end of the installment, but for vastly different reasons.
"Ain't it lovely, Roger?"
"It's what you might call 'different,'" he temporised, with a smile.
"Just think of that poor little thing havin' her house set afire by a rival suitor just after she had paid off the mortgage by savin' out of her week's wages! Do you suppose he will ever win her?"
"I shouldn't think it likely."
"No, you wouldn't, but the endin' of those stories is always what you wouldn't expect. It's what makes 'em so interestin' and, as you say, 'different.'"
Roger did not answer. He merely yawned and tapped impatiently on the table with his fingers.
Nine o'Clock
"What time is it?" she asked, adjusting her spectacles carefully upon the ever-useful and unfailing wart.
"A little after nine."
"Sakes alive! It's time I was abed. I've got to get up early in the mornin' and set my bread. Good-night."
"Good-night, Mother."
"Don't set up long. Oil is terrible high."
"All right, Mother."
Miss Mattie went upstairs and closed her door with a resounding bang. Roger heard her strike a match on a bit of sandpaper tacked on the wall near the match-safe, and close the green blinds that served the purpose of the more modern window-shades. Soon, a deep, regular sound suggestive of comfortable slumber echoed and re-echoedoverhead. Then, and then only, he dared to go out.
A Light in the Window
He sat on the narrow front porch for a few minutes, deeply breathing the cool air and enjoying the beauty of the night. Across the way, the little grey house seemed lonely and forlorn. The upper windows were dark, but downstairs Barbara's lamp still shone.
"Sewing, probably," mused Roger. "Poor little thing."
As he watched, the lamp was put out. Then a white shadow moved painfully toward the window, bent, and struck a match. Star-like, Barbara's signal-light flamed out into the gloom, with its eager message.
"She wants me," he said to himself. The joy was inextricably mingled with pain. "She wants me," he thought, "and I must not go."
"Why?" asked his heart, and his conscience replied, miserably, "Because."
For ten or fifteen minutes he argued with himself, vainly. Every objection that came forward was reasoned down by a trained mind, versed in the intricacies of the law. The deprivations of the fathers need not always descend unto the children. At last he went over, wondering whether his father had not more than once, and at the same hour, taken the same path.
Two Hours of Life
Barbara was out in the garden, dreaming. For the first time in years, when she had workto do, she had laid it aside before eleven o'clock. But, in two hours, she could have made little progress with her embroidery, and she chose to take for herself two hours of life, out of what might prove to be the last night she had to live.
When Roger opened the gate, Barbara took her crutches and rose out of her low chair.
"Don't," he said. "I'm coming to you."
She had brought out another chair, with great difficulty, in anticipation of his coming. Her own was near the moonflower that climbed over the tiny veranda and was now in full bloom. The white, half-open trumpets, delicately fragrant, had more than once reminded him of Barbara herself.
"What a brute I'd be," thought Roger, with a pang, "if I had disappointed her."
"I'm so glad," said Barbara, giving him a cool, soft little hand. "I began to be afraid you couldn't come."
"I couldn't, just at first, but afterward it was all right. How are you?"
"I'm well, thank you, but I'm going to be made better to-morrow. That's why I wanted to see you to-night—it may be for the last time."
Her words struck him with chill foreboding. "What do you mean?"
"To-morrow, some doctors are coming down from the city, with two nurses and a few otherthings. They're going to see if I can't do without these." She indicated the crutches with an inclination of her golden head.
"Barbara," he gasped. "You mustn't. It's impossible."
"Nothing is impossible any more," she returned, serenely.
"That isn't what I meant. You mustn't be hurt."
A Wonderful World
"I'm not going to be hurt—much. It's all to be done while I'm asleep. Miss Wynne, a lady from the hotel, brought Doctor Conrad to see me. Afterward, he came again by himself, and he says he is very sure that it will come out all right. And when I'm straight and strong and can walk, he's going to try to have father made to see. A fairy godmother came in and waved her wand," went on Barbara, lightly, "and the poor became rich at once. Now the lame are to walk and the blind to see. Is it not a wonderful world?"
"Barbara!" cried Roger; "I can't bear it. I don't want you changed—I want you just as you are."
"Such impediments as are placed in the path of progress!" she returned. Her eyes were laughing, but her voice had in it a little note of tenderness. "Will you do something for me?"
"Anything—everything."
"It's only this," said Barbara, gently. "Ifit should turn out the other way, will you keep father from being lonely? Miss Wynne has promised that he shall never want for anything, and, at the most, it couldn't be long until he was with me again, but, in the meantime, would you, Roger? Would you try to take my place?"
"Nobody in the world could ever take your place, but I'd try—God knows I'd try. Barbara, I couldn't bear it, if——"
"Hush. There isn't any 'if.' It's all coming right to-morrow."
Beauty of a Saint
The full moon had swung slowly up out of the sea, and the misty, silvery light touched Barbara lovingly. Her slender hands, crossed in her lap, seemed like those of a little child. Her deep blue eyes were lovelier than ever in the enchanted light—they had the calmness of deep waters at dawn, untroubled by wind or tide. Around her face her golden hair shimmered and shone like a halo. She had the unearthly beauty of a saint.
"Afterward?" he asked, with a little choke in his voice.
"I'll be in plaster for a long time, and, after that, I'll have to learn to walk."
"And then?"
"Work," she said, joyously. "Think of having all the rest of your life to work in, with no crutches! And if Daddy can see me—" she stopped, but he caught the wistfulness inher tone. "The first thing," she continued, "I'm going down to the sea. I have a fancy to go alone."
"Have you never been?"
"I've never been outside this house and garden but once or twice. Have you forgotten?"
All the things he might have done came to Roger, remorsefully, and too late. He might have taken Barbara out for a drive almost any time during the last eight years. She could have been lifted into a low carriage easily enough and she had never even been to the sea. A swift, pitying tenderness made his heart ache.
"Nobody ever thought of it," said Barbara, soothingly, as though she had read his thought, "and, besides, I've been too busy, except Sundays. But sometimes, when I've heard the shore singing as the tide came in, and seen the gulls fly past my window, and smelled the salt mist—oh, I've wanted it so."
"I'd have taken you, if I hadn't been such a brute as to forget."
More than the Sea
"You've brought me more than the sea, Roger. Think of all the books you've carried back and forth so patiently all these years. You've done more for me than anybody in the world, in some ways. You've given me the magic carpet of theArabian Nights, only it was a book, instead of a rug. Through yourkindness, I've travelled over most of the world, I've met many of the really great people face to face, I've lived in all ages and all countries, and I've learned to know the world as it is now. What more could one person do for another than you have done for me?"
"Barbara?" It was Miriam's voice, calling softly from an upper window. "You mustn't stay up late. Remember to-morrow."
"All right, Aunty." Her answer carried with it no hint of impatience. "I forgot that we weren't in the house," she added, to Roger, in a low tone.
"Must I go?" To-night, for some reason, he could not bear even the thought of leaving her.
"Not just yet. I've been thinking," she continued, in a swift whisper, "about my mother and—your father. Of course we can't understand—we only know that they cared. And, in a way, it makes you and me something like brother and sister, doesn't it?"
"Perhaps it does. I hadn't thought of that."
The Barrier Broken
All at once, the barrier that seemed to have been between them crashed down and was forgotten. Mysteriously, Roger was very sure that those four days had held no wrong—no betrayal of another's trust. His father would not have done anything which was not absolutely right. The thought made him straighten himself proudly. And the mother of the girlwho leaned toward him, with her beautiful soul shining in her deep eyes, could have been nothing less than an angel.
"To-morrow"—began Roger.
"To-morrow is Mine"
"To-morrow was made for me. God is giving me a day to be made straight in. To-morrow is mine, but—will you come and stay with father? Keep him away from the house and with you, until—afterward?"
"I will, gladly."
Barbara rose and Roger picked up her crutches. "You'll never have to do that for me again," she said, as she took them, "but there'll be lots of other things. Will you take in the chairs, please?"
A lump was in his throat and he could not speak. When he came out, after having made a brief but valiant effort to recover his self-control, Barbara was standing at the foot of the steps, leaning on her crutches, with the moon shining full upon her face.
Roger went to her. "Barbara," he said, huskily, "my father loved your mother. For the sake of that, and for to-morrow, will you kiss me to-night?"
Smiling, Barbara lifted her face and gave him her lips as simply and sweetly as a child. "Good-night," she said, softly, but he could not answer, for, at the touch, the white fire burned in his blood and the white magic of life's Maytime went, singing, through his soul.
The shimmering white silence of noon lay upon the land. Bees hummed in the clover, gorgeous butterflies floated drowsily over the meadows, and far in the blue distance a meadow-lark scattered his golden notes like rain upon the fields.
A Cold Shadow
The world teemed with life, and yet a cold shadow, as of approaching death, darkened the souls of two who walked together in the dusty road that led from the hills to the sea. The old man leaned heavily upon the arm of the younger, and his footsteps faltered. The young man's face was white and he saw dimly, as through a mist, but he tried to keep his voice even.
From the open windows of the little grey house came the deadly sweet smell of anæsthetics, heavy with prescience and pain. It dominated, instantly, all the blended Summer fragrances and brought terror to them both.
"I cannot bear it," said Ambrose North,miserably. "I cannot bear to have my baby hurt."
"She isn't being hurt now," answered Roger, with dry lips. "She's asleep."
"It may be the sleep that knows no waking. If you loved Barbara, you would understand."
The boy's senses, exquisitely alive and quivering, merged suddenly into one unspeakable hurt. If he loved Barbara! Ah, did he not love her? What of last night, when he walked up and down in that selfsame road until dawn, alone with the wonder and fear and joy of it, and unutterably dreading the to-morrow that had so swiftly become to-day.
"I was a fool," muttered Ambrose North. "I was a fool to give my consent."
"It was her choice," the boy reminded him, "and when she walks——"
"When she walks, it may be in the City Not Made With Hands. If I had said 'no,' we should not be out here now, while she—" The tears streamed over his wrinkled cheeks and his bowed shoulders shook.
All for the Best
"Don't," pleaded Roger. "It's all for the best—it must be all for the best."
Neither of them saw Eloise approaching as she came up the road from the hotel. She was in white, as usual, bareheaded, and she carried a white linen parasol. She went to them, calling out brightly, "Good morning!"
"Who is it?" asked the old man.
"It must be Miss Wynne, I think."
"What is it?" inquired Eloise, when she joined them. "What is the matter?"
The blind man could not speak, but he pointed toward the house with a shaking hand.
"It's Barbara, you know," said Roger. "They're in there—cutting her." The last words were almost a whisper.
Allan is There
"But you mustn't worry," cried Eloise. "Nothing can go wrong. Why, Allan is there."
Insensibly her confidence in Allan and the clear ring of her voice relieved the unbearable tension. Surely, Barbara could not die if Allan were there.
"It's hard, I know," Eloise went on, in her cool, even tones, "but there is no doubt about the ending. Allan is one of the few really great surgeons—he has done wonderful things. He has done things that everyone else said were impossible. Barbara will walk and be as straight and strong as any of us. Think what it will mean to her after twenty years of helplessness. How fine it will be to see her without the crutches."
"I have never minded the crutches," said Roger. "I do not want her changed."
"I cannot see her," sighed Ambrose North. "I have never seen my baby."
"But you're going to," Eloise assured him,"for Allan says so, and whatever Allan says is true."
At length, she managed to lead them farther away, though not out of sight of the house, and they all sat down on the grass. She talked continually and cheerfully, but the atmosphere was tense with waiting. Ambrose North bowed his grey head in his hands, and Roger, still pale, did not once take his eyes from the door of the little grey house.
After what seemed an eternity, someone came out. It was one of Allan's assistants. A nurse followed, and put a black bag into the buggy which was waiting outside. Roger was on his feet instantly, watching.
"Sit down," commanded Eloise, coolly. "Allan can see us from here, and he will come and tell us."
Ambrose North lifted his grey head. "Have they—finished—with her?"
"I don't know," returned Eloise. "Be patient just a little longer, please do."
All Right
Outwardly she was calm, but, none the less, a great sob of relief almost choked her when Doctor Conrad came across the road to them, swinging his black bag, and called out, in a voice high with hope, "All right!"
The sky was a wonderful blue, but the colour of the sea was deeper still. The vast reachesof sand were as white as the blown snow, and the Tower of Cologne had never been so fair as it was to-day. The sun shone brightly on the clear glass arches that made the cupola, and the golden bells swayed back and forth silently.
The Changed Tower
Barbara was trying to climb up to the cupola, but her feet were weary and she paused often to rest. The rooms that opened off from the various landings of the winding stairway were lovelier than ever. The furnishings had been changed since she was last there, and each room was made to represent a different flower.
There was a rose room, all in pink and green, a pond-lily room in green and white, a violet room in green and lavender, and a gorgeous suite of rooms which someway seemed like a great bouquet of nasturtiums. But, strangely, there was no fragrance of cologne in the Tower. The bottles were all on the mantels, as usual, but Barbara could not open any of them. Instead, there was a heavy, sweet, sickening smell from which she could not escape, though she went continually from room to room. It followed her like some evil thing that threatened to overpower her.
The Boy who had always been beside her, and whose face she could not see, was still in the Tower, but he was far away, with his back toward her. He seemed to be suffering and Barbara tried to get to him to comforthim, but some unforeseen obstacle inevitably loomed up in her path.
People in the Tower
There were many people in the Tower, and most of them were old friends, but there were some new faces. Her father was there, of course, and all the brave knights and lovely ladies of whom she had read in her books. Miss Wynne was there and she had never been in the Tower before, but Barbara smiled at her and was glad, though she wished they might have had cologne instead of the sickening smell which grew more deadly every minute.
A grave, silent young man whose demeanour was oddly at variance with his red hair was there also. He had just come and it seemed that he was a doctor. Barbara had heard his name but could not remember it. There were also two young women in blue and white striped uniforms which were very neat and becoming. They wore white caps and smiled at Barbara. She had heard their names, too, but she had forgotten.
None of them seemed to mind the heavy odour which oppressed her so. She opened the windows in the Tower and the cool air came in from the blue sea, but it changed nothing.
"Come, Boy," she called across the intervening mist. "Let's go up to the cupola and ring all the golden bells."
He did not seem to hear, so she called again,and again, but there was no response. It was the first time he had failed to answer her, and it made her angry.
"Then," cried Barbara, shrilly, "if you don't want to come, you needn't, so there. But I'm going. Do you hear? I'm going. I'm going up to ring those bells if I have to go alone."
Still, the Boy did not answer, and Barbara, her heart warm with resentment, began to climb the winding stairs. She did not hurry, for pictures of castles, towers, and beautiful ladies were woven in the tapestry that lined the walls.
She came, at last, to the highest landing. There was only one short flight between her and the cupola. The clear glass arches were dazzling in the sun and the golden bells swayed temptingly. But a blinding, overwhelming fog drifted in from the sea, and she was afraid to move by so much as a step. She turned to go back, and fell, down—down—down—into what seemed eternity.
The Clouds Lift
Before long, the cloud began to lift. She could see a vague suggestion of blue and white through it now. The man with the red hair was talking, loudly and unconcernedly, to a tall man beside him whose face was obscured by the mist. The voices beat upon Barbara's ears with physical pain. She tried to speak, to ask them to stop, but the words would not come. Then she raised her hand, weakly, and silence came upon the room.
Out of the fog rose Doctor Allan Conrad. He was tired and there was a strained look about his eyes, but he smiled encouragingly. He leaned over her and she smiled, very faintly, back at him.
"Brave little girl," he said. "It's all right now. All we ever hoped for is coming very soon." Then he went out, and she closed her eyes. When she was again conscious of her surroundings, it was the next day, but she thought she had been asleep only a few minutes.
At first there was numbness of mind and body. Then, with every heart-beat and throb by throb, came unbearable agony. A trembling old hand strayed across her face and her father's voice, deep with love and longing, whispered: "Barbara, my darling! Does it hurt you now?"
"Just a little, Daddy, but it won't last long. I'll be better very soon."
One of the blue and white nurses came to her and said, gently, "Is it very bad, Miss North?"
Intense Pain
"Pretty bad," she gasped. Then she tried to smile, but her white lips quivered piteously. The woman with the kind, calm face came back with a shining bit of silver in her hand. There was a sharp stab in Barbara's arm, and then, with incredible quickness, peace.
"What was it?" she asked, wondering.
"Poppies," answered the nurse. "They bring forgetfulness."
"Barbara," said the old man, sadly, "I wish I could help you bear it——"
"So you can, Daddy."
"But how?"
"Don't be afraid for me—it's coming out all right. And make me a little song."
"I couldn't—to-day."
"There is always a song," she reminded him. "Think how many times you have said to me, 'Always make a song, Barbara, no matter what comes.'"
The old man stirred uneasily in his chair. "What about, dear?"
"About the sea."
Song of the Sea
"The sea is so vast that it reaches around the world," he began, hesitatingly. "It sings upon the shore of every land, from the regions of perpetual ice and snow to the far tropic islands, where the sun forever shines. As it lies under the palms, all blue and silver, crooning so softly that you can scarcely hear it, you would not think it was the same sea that yesterday was raging upon an ice-bound shore.
"If you listen to its ever-changing music you can hear almost anything you please, for the sea goes everywhere. Ask, and the sea shall sing to you of the frozen north where half the year is darkness and the impassable waste of waters sweeps across the pole. Ask, andyou shall hear of the distant islands, where there has never been snow, and the tide may even bring to you a bough of olive or a leaf of palm.
Song of the Sea
"Ask, and the sea will give you red and white coral, queer shells, mystically filled with its own weird music, and treasures of fairy-like lace-work and bloom. It will sing to you of cool, green caves where the waves creep sleepily up to the rocks and drift out drowsily with the ebb of the tide.
"It will sing of grey waves changing to foam in the path of the wind, and bring you the cry of the white gulls that speed ahead of the storm. It will sing to you of mermen and mermaids, chanting their own melodies to the accompaniment of harps with golden strings. Listen, and you shall hear the songs of many lands, merged into one by the sea that unites them all.
"It bears upon its breast the great white ships that carry messages from one land to another. Silks and spices and pearls are taken from place to place along the vast highways of the sea. And if, sometimes, in a blinding tumult of terror and despair, the men and ships go down, the sea, remorsefully, brings back the broken spars, and, at last, gives up the dead.