"Oh, John!" interrupted Miss Basset, "how shocking! Oh, poor, poor Paul! What a terrible affliction to fall upon him! Oh, I never thought of this! Dear me, oh, dear me!" She sat wringing her hands, the tears coursing down her cheeks.
"Do you mean that my father is blind?" asked Josephine slowly, as though her mind was incapable of grasping the truth, plainly though Mr. Basset had spoken. There was an expression of horror on her face. "Yes!" she cried, as her uncle bowed his head silently, "he is blind! Oh, father, father, father!"
She snatched her hand from Mr. Basset's and rose to her feet. May, full of sympathy, hastened to her; but she put her aside, and ran out of the room.
"Don't follow her—you'd better not," advised Mr. Basset, as May stood hesitating; "for the time, at any rate, she will be best alone. I've so dreaded telling her, poor little soul!"
Josephine had run out into the rose-scented garden and hidden herself in a summerhouse which occupied a secluded corner. She cast herself on the ground on her knees, in an agony of grief, her head bowed on her arms which she rested on one of the two wooden chairs she and May used when—as they often did—they came there to do their war work. Heavy sobs shook her slender form; but it was some minutes before tears came to her relief, then it seemed as though they would never stop.
"Oh, father, poor, poor father!" she moaned over and over again; "oh, what will he do?—what will he do?"
Her heart bled with pity for her father. She pictured him as she had seen him last, looking back at her from the departing train at Midbury railway station. What a splendid soldier he had been! So full of strength and courage! She recalled how longingly his eyes had smiled at her! Beautiful eyes, so bright and brave! Now their light was quenched for ever!
By and by her tears ceased to flow, and she raised her head. Over the doorway of the summerhouse hung festoons of pink and white cluster roses, swaying gently in the summer breeze and making the air fragrant with their scent. Josephine noticed them with deepening pain.
"Father will never see them now," she thought, "never—never! And he will never more see the sunshine, or the starlight, or any of the beautiful sights he loved! Oh, poor father!"
She bowed her head once more on her arms, but she did not weep again; her passion of grief had spent itself. And so Mr. Basset found her, a picture of utter dejection, when, guessing where she had hidden, he, by and by, came to seek her.