"Why, y-yes, of course," faltered Dorothy, stammering in her turn.
"I knew you would. Then please don't go home with your father this time."
"Don't go home—with—my father!" exclaimed the girl, in puzzled wonder.
"No. Because if you do—That is—Oh, I know it's awful for me to say this, but I've got to do it for Keith. You see, if you go,—Keith won't."
"If I go, he—I don't think—I quite understand." The girl drew back a little haughtily. Her face showed a painful flush.
"No, no, of course you don't! An' please, PLEASE don't look like that," begged Susan. "It's jest this. I found out. I wormed it out of him the other day—why he won't let you come to see him. He says that once, long ago, you said how you couldn't bear to look at blind people, an'—"
"Oh, I never, never could have said such a cruel thing to—to a blind boy," interposed the girl.
"He wasn't blind then. He said he wasn't. But, it was when he was 'fraid he was goin' to be blind; an' he see you an' Mazie Sanborn at the foot of Harrington Hill, one day. It was just after the old man had got blind, an' Keith had been up to see him. It seems that Keith was worryin' then for fear HE was goin' to be blind."
"He WAS?"
"Yes—things blurred, an' all that. Well, at the foot of the hill he see you an' Mazie, an' you shuddered at his goin' up to see Mr. Harrington, an' said how could he bear to look at folks that was blind. That YOU couldn't. An' he never forgot it. Bein' worried for fear he himself was goin' blind, you see, he was especially acceptable to anything like that."