"You will be glad," said Barbara, "to hear that I have severed friendly relations with Mr. Blizzard. He behaved in the end pretty much as you all feared he would."
And she told her father, briefly, and somewhat shamefacedly, all that had happened in the studio.
"He thought I was laughing at him," she said. "Of course I wasn't. And he came at me. Do you remember when poor old Rose went mad, and tried to get at us through the bars of the kennel? Blizzard looked like that--like a mad dog." She shuddered.
The surgeon's high spirits were dashed as with cold water.
"He ought not to be helped," said Barbara; "he ought to be shot, as Rose was."
But Dr. Ferris shook his head gravely. "If he is that sort of a man," he said, "who made him so? Who took the joy of life from him? Barbara, my dear, there is nothing that man could do that I couldn't forgive."
"And I think that your conscience is sick," said Barbara. "I used to think as you think. But if you had seen his face that day!... The one great mistake you have made has ruined not his life, but yours. If he had had the right stuff in him, calamity would not have broken him! It would have made him. Give him a new pair of legs, if you can; and forget about him, as I shall. When you first told me about him, I thought we owed him anything he chose to ask. At one time I thought that if he wished it, it would be right for me to marry him."
"Barbara!"
"Yes, I did--I thought it strongly. Shows what a fool a girl who's naturally foolish can make of herself! Why, father, what if he has suffered through your mistake? That mistake turned your thoughts to the new surgery--and for the one miserable man that you have hurt you will have given the wonder of hope to the whole of mankind."
She slid her hand under her father's arm.