as I love you, heart of me, I
would have found in you treasures that were meant for me alone.
I'm getting wild. I must stop. My head is spinning. Soon it will be
dawn, and I am to ride again with Peter to-morrow. I told you I would
ride every fair day with him, and I am hoping it will rain. But it
will not rain, though to me the sky may be murky. I can see the clouds
scudding before a west wind. It will be clear, and I shall ride with
him as I promised, and I shall kiss him upon his eyes. But if you were
with me--
Here and here and here I throw them out into the dark.
Good-night, soul of my soul.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BLIND SEE
Day by day Peter's eyes grew stronger, because day by day he was thinking
less about himself and more about Marjory.
"He needs to get away from himself," the doctors had told Beatrice. "If
you can find something that will occupy his thoughts, so that he will
quit thinking about his eyes, you 'll double his chances." Beatrice had
done that when she found Marjory, and now she was more than satisfied
with the result and with herself. Every morning she saw Peter safely
entrusted to Marjory's care, and this left her free the rest of the day
to walk a little, read her favorite books, and nibble chocolates. She
was getting a much-needed rest, secure in the belief that everything was
working out in quite an ideal way.
The only thing that seemed to her at all strange was a sudden reluctance
on Peter's part to talk to her of Marjory. At the end of the day the
three had dinner together at the Hotel d'Angleterre,--Marjory could never
be persuaded to dine at the Roses,--and when by eight Peter and his
sister returned to their own hotel, he gave her only the barest details
of his excursion, and retired early to his room. But he seemed cheerful
enough, so that, after all, this might be only another favorable symptom
of his progress. Peter always had been more or less secretive, and until
his illness neither she nor his parents knew more than an outline of his
life in New York. Periodically they came on to visit him for a few days,
and periodically he went home for a few days. He was making a name for
himself, and they were very proud of him, and the details did not matter.
Knowing Peter as they did, it was easy enough to fill them in.
Even with Marjory, Peter talked less and less about himself. From his
own ambitions, hopes, and dreams he turned more and more to hers. Now
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