“Thank God for that!” exclaimed the boy, “but I don’t see yet where you came in.”
“Then we talked over how we could prevent your father from knowing you didn’t intend to come home. You see if he had learned that he would have just dropped his head back on the pillow and died.”
“And I thought he never wanted to lay eyes on me again!”
“He grew young while he was sick,” explained Barnes. “He came back home while he was sick, and he wanted you again.”
“But how did you manage it? How—”
“I played the prodigal,” explained Barnes, simply. “I took your part.”
“You made him believe you were me?”
“Exactly.”
“And he did believe it?”
“He was blind and very anxious. So he believed.”