"Won't matter now," said Barton grimly. "Feel like talking now.
To-morrow may be—too late!" And after another pause, he went on:
"The fine dreams of youth—odd where they end, isn't it?
"This—and me—so different. So different! Failure. She was wise—but she didn't know everything. The world was too big—too hard for me. 'You can't fail,' she said, 'I won't let you fail!' But you see——"
Harber's mind, slipping back down the years, with Barton, to his own parting, stopped with a jerk.
"What!" he exclaimed.
Barton seemed drifting, half conscious, half unconscious of what he was saying. He did not appear to have heard Harber's exclamation over the phrase so like that Janet had given him.
"We weren't like the rest," droned Barton. "No—we wanted more out of life than they did. We couldn't be content—with half a loaf. We wanted—the bravest adventures—the yellowest gold—the…."
Picture that scene, if you will. What would you have said? Harber saw leaping up before him, with terrible clarity, as if it were etched upon his mind, that night in Tawnleytown ten years before. It was as if Barton, in his semidelirium, were reading the words from his past!
"I won't let you fail! … half a loaf … the bravest adventures … the yellowest gold." Incredible thing! That Barton and his girl should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases! And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber…. No! No! He spurned it. It couldn't be. And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, written to him, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be stark, unassailable fact.
He put his hand upon Barton's arm and gently pressed it.
"Barton," he said, "tell me—Janet—Tawnleytown?"