“See her! What am I talking about? Do I not know I shall never see her again?”
And a girl’s voice, soft and cooing and tender,—an utterly unexpected voice,—answered him,—
“Yes, you will see her again. Surely you will see her again.”
The boy turned his face toward the sound.
“How did you come here, Susie Hale?” he asked.
“Don’t be angry, George,” the gentle voice entreated. “I waited for you. I could not go home till I had told you how sorry I was, and tried to comfort you.”
“Comfort me!” There was a sort of scornful bitterness in the cry. “How can I be comforted? Do you think what it will be never to see the green earth or the blue sky, or any dear face any more, for ever and ever?”
“But you will see them,” she said gently. “I did not mean that you must be reconciled to give up hope. I mean that you must take heart, and try to be cured. I have known people who could not see at all to be helped, and why not you? At least, you must try.”
An evil mood was upon George Graham, and he answered harshly,—
“Where is the money to come from, if you please? It has been all mother could do just to live and she has struggled on, in the expectation of my being able soon to help her. She has no money for experiments. There is nothing for it but for me to rest a dead weight upon her hands, or—die.”