Three Things
"What would you see, Daddy, if you had your choice? Tell me the three things in the world that you most want to see." With supreme effort, Barbara put self aside and endeavoured to lead him back to happier things.
"Three things?" he repeated. "Let me think. If God should give me back my sight for the space of half an hour before I died, I should choose to see, first, your dear mother's letter in which she says that she died loving me; next, your mother herself as she was just before she died, and then, dear, my Flower of the Dusk—my baby whom I never have seen. Perhaps," he added, thoughtfully, "perhaps I should rather see you than Constance, for, in a very little while, I should meet her past the sunset, where she has waited so long for me. But the letter would come first, Barbara—can you understand?"
"Yes," she breathed, "I understand."
The hope in her heart died. She could not ask for the letter. He took it from his pocket as though it were a jewel of great price. "Put my finger on the words that say, 'I love him still.'"
Blinded with tears and choked by sobs, Barbara pointed out the line. That, at least, was true. The old man raised it to his lips as a monk might raise his crucifix when kneeling in penitential prayer.
"I keep it always near me," he said, softly. "I shall keep it until I can see."
Long after he had gone to bed, Barbara lay trembling. The problem that had risen up before her without warning seemed to have no possible solution. If he recovered his sight, she could not keep him from knowing their poverty. One swift glance would show him all—and destroy his faith in her. That was unavoidable. But—need he know that the dead had deceived him too?
The innate sex-loyalty, which is strong in all women who are really fine, asserted itself in full power now. It was not only the desire to save her father pain that made Barbara resolve, at any cost, to keep the betraying letter from him. It was also the secret loyalty, not of a child to an unknown mother, but of woman to woman—of sex to sex.