s,
was not quite like Miss Rand.

But of this thing that he had heard he thought nothing. "There's
_something_ that I ought to think about. I don't know _what_ it is--One
day when I'm stronger I'll look into it."

There came a day when he _was_ stronger, a day, late in January, of a
pale wintry sun and watery gleams. They had placed his bed so that he
could see his beloved Downs and the little road that ran from their foot
out into the village.

On this morning he was wonderfully better--he had slept well, breezes
and pleasant scents came through the open window, geese were cackling, a
donkey's braying made him laugh "Silly old donkey," he said aloud to no
one in particular. Then he was aware of Jacob, sitting bunched into a
heap in the middle of the floor, his brown eyes peering anxiously
through his hair. At every sound his ears would rise for a moment, but
his eyes were fixed upon Roddy.

The dog had been in Roddy's room a good deal during these last weeks,
had been wrenched away from it. Roddy found that he was touched by this
devotion; Jacob apparently cared more for him than did the other
dogs--"Not a bad old thing--Often these mongrels are more human--But,
Lord! he _is_ a sight!"

The nurse was sitting sewing by the window. Roddy lay, happily, thinking
that now at last that jolly bad pain really _did_ seem to have been left
behind. He was immensely, wonderfully better; it would not be long,
surely, before he was quite fit again, before he....

Then down it swung, swung like an iron door shutting all the world away
from him, inexorable--"Always on your back ... never get up again!"

His hand gripped the bed-clothes.

"Nurse."

"Yes?"

"Tell me--am I dreaming or did someone say something the other day
about--about my never being able, well, to toddle again, you know?"

"I'm afraid----"

"Thanks."

He closed his eyes and then summoned all the grit and determination that
there was in him to face this fact. He could not face it. It was as
though he were struggling up the side of a high slippery rock--up he
would struggle, up and up, now he was at the top, down he would slip
again--it could not, oh! it could not be true!

It _was_ true. As the days passed grimly in silence, he accepted it. It
had always been his creed that in this world there was no place for the
maimed and the halt. He was sorry for them, of course, but it was better
that they should go; they only occupied room that was intended for