Page:Restless Earth.djvu/185

I’m going to believe some of the things I read in detective stories. It came to me———”

“But she was reported dead!”

“So were a lot more people who are walking about to-day, my dear. Pull yourself together.”

Patricia’s head fell forward. Buzzy took her in her arms.

“I know it’s an awful shock, Pat,—but—play the game, old thing. Play the game!”

“Oh, Buzzy! Is she badly hurt?”

Buzzy swallowed hard. She had much ado to preserve her professional calm at this moment.

“Pretty bad,” she answered gently. “Blinded, and disfigured for life.”

She felt Patricia shudder and go limp in her arms.

“Come, old thing,” she murmured encouragingly. “I’m depending on you.”

Patricia did not hear her. She had fainted for the first time in her life.

***

Almost a month had passed since the earthquake when Patricia Weybourn walked slowly up the garden path to the Harley bungalow carrying the letters, some sodden with recent rain, which had lain in the box at the gate. The curtains of coloured net at the windows waved gently in the westerly breeze. Patricia eyed them absently.

Behind the waving curtains on the right lay Grace Harley, silent, listening to the lagging footsteps of the woman who had brought her home.

Grace Harley would never see again.

The surgeon had been definite about it. The falling beam, which had marred her soft beauty irreparably, had destroyed her sight utterly. She knew these things now, yet her lips smiled—while her soul wept in the darkness. She mourned Joan more than her sight.