No, not you. It was I who refused the gift. Some day it will come to you again, through some other. That is what I tell myself over and over again. I don't think men are like women. They do not give so much of themselves, and so they may choose from two or three. So in time, as you wander about, you will find some one who will hold out her arms, and you will come. She will give you everything she has,—all honest women do that,—but it will not be all I would have given. You may think so, and so be happy; but it will not be true. I shall always know the difference. And you will give her what you have, but it will not be what you would have given me—what I would have drawn out of you. I shall always know that. Because, as I love you, heart of me, I would have found in you treasures that were meant for me alone.
I'm getting wild. I must stop. My head is spinning. Soon it will be dawn, and I am to ride again with Peter to-morrow. I told you I would ride every fair day with him, and I am hoping it will rain. But it will not rain, though to me the sky may be murky. I can see the clouds scudding before a west wind. It will be clear, and I shall ride with him as I promised, and I shall kiss him upon his eyes. But if you were with me—
Here and here and here I throw them out into the dark.
Good-night, soul of my soul.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BLIND SEE
Day by day Peter's eyes grew stronger, because day by day he was thinking less about himself and more about Marjory.
"He needs to get away from himself," the doctors had told Beatrice. "If you can find something that will occupy his thoughts, so that he will quit thinking about his eyes, you 'll double his chances." Beatrice had done that when she found Marjory, and now she was more than satisfied with the result and with herself. Every morning she saw Peter safely entrusted to Marjory's care, and this left her free the rest of the day to walk a little, read her favorite books, and nibble chocolates. She was getting a much-needed rest, secure in the belief that everything was working out in quite an ideal way.
The only thing that seemed to her at all strange was a sudden reluctance on Peter's part to talk to her of Marjory. At the end of the day the three had dinner together at the Hôtel d'Angleterre,—Marjory could never be persuaded to dine at the Roses,—and when by eight Peter and his sister returned to their own hotel, he gave her only the barest details of his excursion, and retired early to his room. But he seemed cheerful enough, so that, after all, this might be only another favorable symptom of his progress. Peter always had been more or less secretive, and until his illness neither she nor his parents knew more than an outline of his life in New York. Periodically they came on to visit him for a few days, and periodically he went home for a few days. He was making a name for himself, and they were very proud of him, and the details did not matter. Knowing Peter as they did, it was easy enough to fill them in.