"I agree with you that it is best he should not, for if he were to lose his sight——"
"Oh, it isn't that. It would make no difference about that. I love him more than ever. He is a hero. Think of what he has done. He has been willing to give himself for the cause of your country and mine. It is because I do not know how he may feel about me. He may care for some one else, and then I should never want him to know that I am the Nancy Loomis he once knew."
"How will you find out?"
"I don't know just yet, but I shall do it in some way."
"Does Lillian know about him?"
"She knows there was some one, but I never told her his name. We have never talked about it very much. Oh, mother! oh, mother! it is all so strange. I shall not sleep to-night for thinking of it, and how can I wait till to-morrow to see him again?"
"But, as you said, if he does not care."
"I know. I know. I am torn a thousand ways. I am distracted. I thought perhaps I might meet him some day and find that I was the one who had outgrown my feeling for him, but now, now when I have seen him so helpless, so patient——" She fell to weeping again.
"My darling child," her mother tried to calm her, "you must not give way in such an uncontrolled way. You will make yourself ill. I think you would better sleep in here with me and not with Lillian to-night."
"And keep you awake," sobbed Anita.