"Sewing, probably," mused Roger. "Poor little thing."
As he watched, the lamp was put out. Then a white shadow moved painfully toward the window, bent, and struck a match. Star-like, Barbara's signal-light flamed out into the gloom, with its eager message.
"She wants me," he said to himself. The joy was inextricably mingled with pain. "She wants me," he thought, "and I must not go."
"Why?" asked his heart, and his conscience replied, miserably, "Because."
For ten or fifteen minutes he argued with himself, vainly. Every objection that came forward was reasoned down by a trained mind, versed in the intricacies of the law. The deprivations of the fathers need not always descend unto the children. At last he went over, wondering whether his father had not more than once, and at the same hour, taken the same path.
Two Hours of Life
Barbara was out in the garden, dreaming. For the first time in years, when she had work to do, she had laid it aside before eleven o'clock. But, in two hours, she could have made little progress with her embroidery, and she chose to take for herself two hours of life, out of what might prove to be the last night she had to live.
When Roger opened the gate, Barbara took her crutches and rose out of her low chair.
"Don't," he said. "I'm coming to you."
She had brought out another chair, with great difficulty, in anticipation of his coming. Her own was near the moonflower that climbed over the tiny veranda and was now in full bloom. The white, half-open trumpets, delicately fragrant, had more than once reminded him of Barbara herself.