Barbara cringed and shrank from him. "Don't, dear," he said. "Your hands are cold. Let me warm them in mine. I fear that to-day has been too much for you."
"I think it has," she answered. The words were almost a whisper.
If the Dream Comes True
"Then, don't try to talk, Barbara. I will talk to you. I know how you feel about my going, but it is not necessary, for I do not fear in the least for myself. I am sure that the dream is coming true, but, if it should not—why, we can bear it together, dear, as we have borne everything. The ways of the Everlasting are not our ways, but my faith is very strong.
If the Dream Comes True
"If the dream comes true, as I hope and believe it will, you and I will go away, dear, and see the world. We shall go to Europe and Egypt and Japan and India, and to the Southern islands, to Greece and Constantinople—I have planned it all. Aunt Miriam can stay here, or we will take her with us, just as you choose. When you can walk, Barbara, and I can see, I shall draw a large check, and we will start at the first possible moment. The greatest blessing of money, I think, is the opportunity it gives for travel. I have been glad, too, so many times, that we are able to afford all these doctors and nurses. Think of the poor people who must suffer always because they cannot command services which are necessarily high-priced."
Barbara's senses reeled and the cold, steel fingers clutched more closely at the aching fibre of her heart. Until this moment, she had not thought of the financial aspects of her situation—it had not occurred to her that Doctor Conrad and the blue and white nurses and even the red-haired young man would expect to be paid. And when her father went to the hospital—"I shall have to sew night and day all the rest of my life," she thought, "and, even then, die in debt."
The Lie
But over and above and beyond it all stood the Lie, that had lived in her house for twenty years and more and was now to be cast out, if—Barbara's heart stood still in horror because, for the merest fraction of an instant, she had dared to hope that her father might never see again.
"I could not have gone alone," the old man was saying, "and even if I could, I should never have left you, but now, I think, the time is coming. I have dreamed all my life of the strange countries beyond the sea, and longed to go. Your dear mother and I were going, in a little while, but—" His lips quivered and he stopped abruptly.