“By the way,” she added, in an effort to change the subject, “how is Dick Thornton? I have been meaning to ask you what you have heard from him.”
This time the younger girl flushed, but so slightly that Eugenia did not appear to notice it.
“I have heard nothing at all,” she returned honestly. “But I don’t suppose Dick is better, as Mildred and Nona have both had letters and say there was nothing important in them.”
Suddenly Barbara took Eugenia’s hand.
“You have more experience than the rest of us,” she began with unusual humility. “I wonder if you think Dick has a chance of ever using his arm again?”
The other girl hesitated. Certainly she had no right to believe that Barbara felt more than the natural interest in Dick that they all had for Mildred’s brother and their own friend. And, as Barbara had just suggested, Eugenia was not supposed even to think on romantic subjects. Nevertheless, her voice was unusually gentle as she replied:
“I don’t really know one thing in the world about it, Barbara, but Dick is young and has lots of determination and most certainly I have not given up hope.”
Eugenia had another twinge of pain in her temples at this second and so closed her eyes. Although hearing a knock at their back door, she did not open them even when Barbara left the room.
A moment later, hearing a strange sound, she was surprised by a sudden sense of terror, almost of suffocation. Yet surely she must be in a kind of nightmare brought on by her illness, since the sound suggested the footsteps which had pursued her the night before and brought on the same unreasoning fear.
Clutching the sides of her chair, Eugenia stared ahead of her.