But they did not tell her how it had happened. The details of that last ride the woman who loved him need never know. Barry was to be her hero always.
CHAPTER XXIV
In Which Roger Comes Once More to the Tower Rooms; and in Which a Duel is Fought in Modern Fashion.
It was Cousin Patty who had suggested sending for Roger. "He can look after me, Mary. If you won't let me go home, I don't want you to have the thought of me to burden you."
"You couldn't be a burden. And I don't know what Aunt Isabelle and I should have done without you."
She began to cry weakly, and Cousin Patty, comforting her, said in her heart, "There is no one but Roger who can say the right things to her."
As yet no one had said the right things. It seemed to Mary that she carried a wound too deep for healing. Gordon had softened the truth as much as possible, but he could not hide it from her. She knew that Barry, her boy Barry, had gone out of the world defeated.
It was Roger who helped her.
He came first upon her as she sat alone in the garden by the fountain. It was a sultry spring day, and heavy clouds hung low on the horizon. Thin and frail in her black frock, she rose to meet him, the ghost of the girl who had once bloomed like a flower in her scarlet wrap.