“Let’s see,” Archie went on. “We might start in ten days or so, and you’d like me to keep him away till after—”
“Yes,” said Hebe calmly, “till after the operation. That is to say, till its result can be known. I am not afraid of the operation itself—nowadays those things are managed painlessly—but it is the afterwards. Oh Archie, I mustn’t cry, they say it is so bad for my eyes; but if I am going to be blind, I can’t marry Norman. He’s so young and full of life, it would be terrible for him to be tied to—”
She drove the tears back bravely, but it was all Archie himself could do to reply cheerfully.
“He would never give you up, I feel convinced,” he said. “But I am quite certain that what we have all got to do just now is to be hopeful. I will see you again soon, Hebe, when I’ve got things into shape a little. Trust it all to me. I must go back to—the country again to-night, for a day or two.”
He rose as if preparing to go.
“Where are you staying?” said Hebe—“at Saint Bartram’s?”
“N-no, I’m at Alderwood,” he replied. “I had some things to see to about there.”
Hebe’s brown eyes looked at him curiously.
“At Alderwood,” she repeated. “Oh, by-the-bye,” and she sighed, “I am so sorry never to have replied to a letter I had from Blanche Derwent. It was a private letter, and I have not been allowed to write at all.”
“Yes,” said Archie coolly, “I know about it. She told me.”