ynne has
promised that he shall never want for anything, and, at the most, it
couldn't be long until he was with me again, but, in the meantime, would
you, Roger? Would you try to take my place?"

"Nobody in the world could ever take your place, but I'd try--God knows
I'd try. Barbara, I couldn't bear it, if----"

"Hush. There isn't any 'if.' It's all coming right to-morrow."

[Sidenote: Beauty of a Saint]

The full moon had swung slowly up out of the sea, and the misty, silvery
light touched Barbara lovingly. Her slender hands, crossed in her lap,
seemed like those of a little child. Her deep blue eyes were lovelier
than ever in the enchanted light--they had the calmness of deep waters
at dawn, untroubled by wind or tide. Around her face her golden hair
shimmered and shone like a halo. She had the unearthly beauty of a
saint.

"Afterward?" he asked, with a little choke in his voice.

"I'll be in plaster for a long time, and, after that, I'll have to learn
to walk."

"And then?"

"Work," she said, joyously. "Think of having all the rest of your life
to work in, with no crutches! And if Daddy can see me--" she stopped,
but he caught the wistfulness in her tone. "The first thing," she
continued, "I'm going down to the sea. I have a fancy to go alone."

"Have you never been?"

"I've never been outside this house and garden but once or twice. Have
you forgotten?"

All the things he might have done came to Roger, remorsefully, and too
late. He might have taken Barbara out for a drive almost any time during
the last eight years. She could have been lifted into a low carriage
easily enough and she had never even been to the sea. A swift, pitying
tenderness made his heart ache.

"Nobody ever thought of it," said Barbara, soothingly, as though she had
read his thought, "and, besides, I've been too busy, except Sundays. But
sometimes, when I've heard the shore singing as the tide came in, and
seen the gulls fly past my window, and smelled the salt mist--oh, I've
wanted it so."

"I'd have taken you, if I hadn't been such a brute as to forget."

[Sidenote: More than the Sea]

"You've brought me more than the sea, Roger. Think of all the books
you've carried back and forth so patiently all these years. You've done
more for me than anybody in the world, in some ways. You've given me the
magic carpet of the _Arabian Nights_, only it was a book, instead of a
rug. Through your kindness, I've travelled over most of th