Sydney hovered about Gwen’s door, racking his brains for something to do for her, all his taciturn indifference lost in his pity and regret for Gwen. Altogether, Jan could not help half wondering if the worst were to come, and Gwen lost her sight, if the good accomplished would not be worth the terrible purchase price.
Only Jack was outside the pale of the family love during these waiting days. Jan’s heart ached for the poor little fellow, whose temper had brought him anguish harder to bear than Gwen’s, but whose father could not forgive him. Jack’s meals were served up-stairs, and his father debated sending him away to a military school, where stern discipline might check the temper which Mr. Graham characterized as “murderous.” But Jan knew that the shock of seeing Gwen sink beneath the pain of the missive he had thrown, and the torture of these past days when every one avoided him, and he waited, like the rest, but not with the rest, to learn Gwen’s fate, had burned into warm-hearted Jack’s brain such horror of bursts of passion that the military discipline would not be necessary, that he was completely cured of even a temptation to violence.
“You are our little comfort, Janet,” said her uncle to her one night, when in the dusk she sat by him chatting of her mother in the hope of cheering him. “You won’t admit that our poor girl can lose the light out of her young life, and though you aren’t an old, wise woman, I can’t help feeling better for your faith.”
“Isn’t that just dear!” cried Jan. “You don’t know how I wish I could help, but I honestly feel certain that God won’t let splendid, clever Gwen be blind.”
“Splendid, clever people are the very ones who have to be perfected by suffering, dear little Miss Lochinvar—queer how I’ve come to like that name for you! But you do help. You have no notion how your gentle, affectionate, sunny little presence cheers your aunt and me, and I think Gladys is a much better girl for being with you. Jenny has lent me a simple, genuine little girl who never thinks of herself, and so, without trying, sweetens all her surroundings. I don’t see how I can repay either Jennie or her loan,” said Jan’s uncle, drawing her up close to his side with a warm caress.
Tears of happiness sprang into Jan’s eyes. “If you really want to do something for me, Uncle Howard,” she whispered, “forgive poor little Jack.”
Her uncle’s face hardened. “Your ‘poor little Jack’ is a thoroughly bad boy,” he said. “I can’t forgive him till I know how Gwen comes out.”
“He has done just the same thing, however she comes out, uncle,” said Jan cautiously. “He did not mean to harm Gwen—he never meant anything at all, but flew into a rage, and threw the first thing that came handy. He has done things like that always, and no one thought much about it, only this time the block struck badly. He will never again be the same—he is ever so much more to be pitied than Gwen! He isn’t bad, Uncle Howard. He is a dear boy, generous, truthful, brave, but he has got a terrific temper. One of our boys has such a temper, but mamma watches and helps him all she can, and he is getting over it without such a dreadful thing to cure him as poor Jack has had. You know Hummie is a dear, but she can’t help a boy the way his father and mother can.”
“Why, Jan, are you implying that I am responsible for Jack’s violence?” demanded her uncle.
Jan turned crimson, but stood to her guns after a fashion. “He needs help, uncle, or he did need it—he will not forget now, I think,” she said. “And you know Aunt Tina and you have been so busy! I love Jack, Uncle Howard, and I pity him more than I do Gwen. How would you have felt if you had blinded mamma when you were eleven?”