"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.