Even the vehement Amy was shocked by this, and her tears stopped, instantly.
"Why, Hal!"
"Sounds wicked, doesn't it? Well, I feel wicked. I feel like, was it Job or one of his friends? that it would be good to 'curse God and die.' Dying would be so much easier than living."
The girl sprang up, clinching her brown hands, and staring at her brother defiantly.
"Hallam Kaye, don't you talk like that! Don't you dare! Suppose God heard you? Suppose He took you at your word and made you die just now, this instant? What then?"
Hallam smiled, wanly, "I won't scare you by saying what then, girlie. If He did, I suppose it would all be right. Everything is right—to the folks who don't have to suffer the thing. Even the doctor—and I liked him as much as I envied him—even he preached to me and bade me not to mind, to 'forget.' Hmm, I wish he could feel, just for one little minute, the helplessness that I must feel always, eternally."
Hallam was dearer to his sister than any other human being, and the despair in her idol's tone promptly banished her anger against his irreverence. She went down on her knees and caught away the arm with which he had hidden his face, kissing him again and again.
"Oh! there will be some way out of this misery, laddie. There must be. It wouldn't be right, that anybody as clever and splendid as you should be left a cripple for life. I won't believe it. I won't!"
"How like father you are!"
Amy's head tossed slightly, and a faint protest came into her eyes, but was banished as soon because of its disloyalty.