Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/144

134 He smiled down upon her. "I think I can manage it."

She got her hat, and they started together; her joy was high, and she chatted to her father incessantly, only receiving incoherent answers from him in return. She felt she was doing her duty nobly. After a time she got weary, and stumbled often as she went. She asked her father frequently, "Was he tired?" and looked doubtful when he answered, "No." The more exhausted she got the more she imagined he must be also. She wished she could offer to carry him; her heart was full of tenderness towards him. When they arrived at the field she ran forward. She climbed the stile to reach to him her hand. He must have smiled had he noticed her solicitude. She thought he must be getting blind, he was so heedless as he walked; he would have stumbled over tufts of grass and straying brambles, had she not been there to guide him. She thought he could not see well, his gaze was so distant. The truth was he saw more than the present. His eyes were dulled by the pressure of lost dreams against them. His ears filled with the notes of a lost voice. He went half blind and half deaf.