"Is she asleep?"
Miriam went to the stairs and called out: "Barbara! Oh, Barbara!" There was no answer.
She started upstairs, but he called her back. "Don't wake her," he said. "Perhaps I can take her supper up to her."
"Suit yourself," responded Miriam, shortly.
She did not see fit to tell him that Barbara was up and could walk. Doctor Conrad could have told him, if he had wanted to—at any rate, it was not Miriam's affair. She bitterly resented the fact that he had not even shaken hands with her when he came home, after his long absence. She hung up his coat and hat, lighted the fire, as the room was cool, went out into the kitchen, and closed the door.
The familiar atmosphere and the comfortable chair in which he sat brought him that peculiar peace of home which is one of the greatest gifts travel can bestow. Even the ticking of the clock came to his senses gratefully. Home at last, after all the pain, the dreary nights and days of acute loneliness, and only one more day to wait—perhaps.
"To see again," he thought. "I am glad I came home first. To-morrow, if God is good to me, I shall see my baby—and the letter. I have dreamed so often that she could walk and I could see!"
He took the two sheets of paper from his pocket and spread them out upon his knee. He moved his hands lovingly across the pages—the one written upon, the other blank. "She died loving me," he said to himself. "To-morrow I shall see it, in her own hand."
Why Not To-Day
Sunset flamed behind the hills and brought into the little room faint threads of gold and amethyst that wove a luminous tapestry with the dusk. The clock ticked steadily, and with every cheery tick brought nearer that dear To-Morrow of which he had dreamed so long. He speculated upon the difference made by the slow passage of a few hours. To-morrow, at this time, his bandages would be off—then why not to-day?