"You mean--you don't know?"

"Yes."

"But--the doctor?"

"Dr. Warren himself seems--at sea. He is in correspondence now with a
New York specialist. They have arranged for a consultation at once."

"But--but what WERE her injuries that you do know?"

"A slight cut on the head, one or two bruises, and--and an injury to the
spine which has seemed to cause--paralysis from the hips down."

A low cry came from the man. There was a brief silence; then, huskily,
he asked:

"And Pollyanna--how does she--take it?"

"She doesn't understand--at all--how things really are. And I CAN'T tell
her."

"But she must know--something!"

Miss Polly lifted her hand to the collar at her throat in the gesture
that had become so common to her of late.

"Oh, yes. She knows she can't--move; but she thinks her legs
are--broken. She says she's glad it's broken legs like yours rather than
'lifelong-invalids' like Mrs. Snow's; because broken legs get well, and
the other--doesn't. She talks like that all the time, until it--it seems
as if I should--die!"

Through the blur of tears in his own eyes, the man saw the drawn face
opposite, twisted with emotion. Involuntarily his thoughts went back
to what Pollyanna had said when he had made his final plea for her
presence: "Oh, I couldn't leave Aunt Polly--now!"

It was this thought that made him ask very gently, as soon as he could
control his voice:

"I wonder if you know, Miss Harrington, how hard I tried to get
Pollyanna to come and live with me."

"With YOU!--Pollyanna!"

The man winced a little at the tone of her voice; but his own voice was
still impersonally cool when he spoke again.

"Yes. I wanted to adopt her--legally, you understand; making her my
heir, of course."

The woman in the opposite chair relaxed a little. It came to
her, suddenly, what a brilliant future it would have meant for
Pollyanna--this adoption; and she wondered if Pollyanna were old enough
and mercenary enough--to be tempted by this man's money and position.

"I am very fond of Pollyanna," the man was continuing. "I am fond of
her both for her own sake, and for--her mother's. I stood ready to give
Pollyanna the love that had been twenty-five years in storage."

"LOVE." Miss Polly remembered suddenly why SHE had taken this child
in the first place--and with the recollection came the remembrance of
Pollyanna's own words uttered that very morning: "I love to be called
'dear' by folks that belong to you!