“O, we’ll get the money all right,” Betty assured her.
Rose sighed. “Well, it would be an awful bother, and there’d be a row about our getting home late. And anyhow, Betty, I don’t care much,” she confessed. “I don’t really mind being blind at all. I have such good times right along and you and I are always together. Everybody is lots nicer to me than if I could see and it’s exciting doing everything—the most common, ordinary things. I can write my papers and examinations with that nice frame your father made me, and I don’t mind not taking algebra. And really, I seem to do a lot better with my music.”
Betty stopped and kissed her warmly. She didn’t at all accept Rose’s words at their face value; she simply was more than ever impressed with her bravery and self-denial. And she was more than ever determined upon making a desperate attempt on the following Wednesday to persuade Dr. Vandegrift to give them another chance.
That Wednesday being the regular day of the Sewing Society, she had no difficulty in getting away, and Mrs. Harrow was always lenient. The girls repeated the process of the week before only too literally, for when they had climbed the dirty stair, they found the door locked as before. Again, there was no response to Betty’s knocks and frantic appeals. She kept up, however, long after she knew it was vain, only yielding when the warning calls of the foreign woman from below made her fear lest she have them arrested, smiling as she was.
It was clear that Dr. Vandegrift had gone finally—that he came no longer for his weekly day for appointments at Paulding. Betty supposed that what he had feared had happened—that the jealous doctors had tracked him to his hiding-place and driven him away. It came to her with a terrible pang that discovery of him might have come through her—or rather through Mr. Meadowcroft. Betty was quite aware that there had been a great deal of comment at South Paulding concerning Rose and herself since Mr. Meadowcroft had made them conspicuous. Suppose from it that awful Dr. Mellen had guessed about their going to Millville and had done as Dr. Vandegrift had more than once said he had threatened to do—made it hot for the distinguished specialist! It seemed very likely. And if it were so, Mr. Meadowcroft was responsible not only for spoiling Rose’s life but for who knows what injury to Dr. Vandegrift’s other patients?
Even such painful thoughts which occupied Betty as they passed through the town were not so cruel as the utter blackness of despair that presently settled upon her as she realized that now hope had utterly vanished. Rose, who knew from her voice something of Betty’s distress, repeated her assurances of the preceding week, but to-day they only made the situation worse. Betty felt that she couldn’t bear to have Rose endeavor to keep up the struggle longer. It would be far better for her to give way. If she continued to lock such bitter anguish up in her heart, might it not prove fatal?
And then it came to the girl that perhaps that was to be the end of it all. Perhaps by the time June had come, instead of recovering her sight in the manner in which they had anticipated, Rose should have died from a broken heart! It came coldly to Betty Pogany that perhaps this was to be the answer to her prayers—the only possible answer since Mr. Meadowcroft’s interference. Perhaps Rose was indeed to recover her sight in June, but not on earth—only in paradise!
CHAPTER XXXV
“WHERE are we at, Betty?” Rose queried suddenly after long silence.
“We shall be at your side gate in two minutes,” returned Betty. And Rose detected almost a sob in her voice. Reaching the gate she stopped, drew Betty down, flung her arms about her, and embraced her warmly.