Part 27 (1/2)

”I--I don't understand.”

”Because he loves you,” breathed Beatrice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Because he loves you,” breathed Beatrice.]

”No. No--not that.”

”You don't know how much,” went on the girl excitedly. ”None of us knew how much--until after you went. Oh, he'd never forgive me if he knew I was talking like this! But I can't help it. It was because he would not talk--because he kept it a secret all to himself that this came upon him. They told me at the hospital that it was overwork and worry, and that he had only one chance in a hundred. But I sat by his side, Marjory, night and day, and coaxed him back. Little by little he grew stronger--all except his poor eyes. It was then he told me the truth: how he had tried to forget you in his work.”

”He--he blamed me?”

Beatrice was still clinging to her hands.

”No,” she answered quickly. ”He did not blame you. We never blame those we love, do we?”

”But we hurt those we love!”

”Only when we don't understand. You did not know he loved you like that, did you?”

Marjory withdrew her hands.

”He had no right!” she cried.

Beatrice was silent a moment. There was a great deal here that she herself did not understand. But, though she herself had never loved, there was a great deal she did understand. She spoke as if thinking aloud.

”I have not found love--yet,” she said. ”But I never thought it was a question of right when people loved. I thought it--it just happened.”

Marjory drew a quick breath.

”Yes; it is like that,” she admitted.

Only, she was not thinking of Peter. She was thinking of herself. A week ago she would have smiled at that phrase. Even yesterday she would have smiled a little. Love was something a woman or man undertook or not at will. It was a condition to choose as one chose one's style of living. It was accepted or rejected, as suited one's pleasure. If a woman preferred her freedom, then that was her right.

Then, less than an hour ago, she had flung out her hands toward the shadowy figure of a man walking alone by the sea, her heart aching with a great need for the love that might have been hers had she not smiled.

That need, springing of her own love, had just happened. The fulfillment of it was a matter to be decided by her own conscience; but the love itself had involved no question of right. She felt a wave of sympathy for Peter. She was able to feel for him now as never before.

Poor Peter, lying there alone in the hospital! How the ache, unsatisfied, ate into one.

”Peter would n't tell me at first,” Beatrice was running on. ”His lips were as tight closed as his poor bandaged eyes.”

”The blindness,” broke in Marjory. ”That is not permanent?”

”I will tell you what the doctor told me,” Beatrice replied slowly.

”He said that, while his eyes were badly overstrained, the seat of the trouble was mental. 'He is worrying,' he told me. 'Remove the cause of that and he has a chance.'”

”So you have come to me for that?”

”It seems like fate,” said Peter's sister, with something of awe in her voice. ”When, little by little, Peter told me of his love, I thought of only one thing: of finding you. I wanted to cable you, because I--I thought you would come if you knew. But Peter would not allow that.

He made me promise not to do that. Then, as he grew stronger, and the doctor told us that perhaps an ocean voyage would help him, I wanted to bring him to you. He would not allow that either. He thought you were in Paris, and insisted that we take the Mediterranean route. Then--we happen upon you outside the hotel we chose by chance! Does n't it seem as if back of such a thing as that there must be something we don't understand; something higher than just what we may think right or wrong?”

”No, no; that's impossible,” exclaimed Marjory.