"Then I say—do it!" she said. "I can't look Dick in the face if we do not give him every possible chance. I can't tell him he's a cripple for life without having a fight to save him. It isn't fair—it's like caging some wild, free thing. I know what Dick would say, if we gave him his choice."
Her husband took her hand and held it tightly.
"Yes, Dick would always choose the fight—he never yet lay down to anything," he said. "We'll give him his chance, dear. Can you get it over quickly, Fraser?"
"In two days," Neil Fraser said. He looked at them pityingly. "And you know I'll do my best."
They knew it on this sunny November morning as they wandered blindly up and down the quiet street; over to the roaring traffic of St. Kilda Road and back again; ever back to the big house where, with two surgeons to aid Neil Fraser, Dick was taking his last chance. They could hear nothing yet, they knew; it was too soon to look for any word from the glass-domed theatre at the back. Of that John Lester tried to keep his wife from thinking. They talked of Dick—of his merry baby days; of his first pony, of the happy years when life at Kurrajong had centred about him while he slipped from childhood into boyhood. He had looked only a little child when they kissed him that morning.
"We're going out for a little while," they had said. "You won't mind?"
"Oh, no!" Dick had answered, faintly surprised. There were several surprising things that morning, the worst being that no one had seemed to have time to bring him any breakfast. The nurse had laughed when he said he was hungry, telling him the cook had gone on strike; but he was nearly sure he saw one of them put her handkerchief to her eyes as she left the room. Perhaps she was worried over something, he had thought; he would not bother her any more about breakfast, anyway. Then his father and mother had come for that queer early visit, leaving again very soon. They had gone out quickly—but his mother had turned back from the door and kissed him again.
"God bless you, my darling!" she had whispered—and was gone.
He was thinking over it when Dr. Fraser had appeared beside him. They were great friends, and he grinned up at him.
"I say, is mother all right?"