oo closely, had burst from its socket, irretrievably lost.
He could but try; and now his humanity as well as his love nerved him
to the task.

A preliminary course of treatment was ordered, and the Lenten season was
nearly over when the eye was declared ready for the knife. The day was
appointed, and the patient's own room was selected as the place. The
night before, the doctor came in all worn and tired out from a hurried
call to a neighboring city hospital. Doris knew his step and met him at
the door.

"Come with me, Doris, into the library," he said.

Nervous with undefined apprehension, she followed him.

"Can you bear good news?" he asked, bending upon her eyes which held for
her the light of loving sympathy. "Will you be as brave as you have been
all these years? I was called away yesterday----"

"Ralph!" she gasped, catching his arm in the excitement of hope.

"Yes--Ralph," he said, placing his arm about her; "he is cleared at
last. The man I was called to see was James Green, Ralph's fellow-clerk.
He was run down by a heavy furniture van and badly crushed. I could not
save him, but he knew me, and gave me this paper, which is a confession
of his guilt. It completely exonerates your brother."

"Thank God!" she fervently exclaimed, clasping the paper to her heart.

"Shall we tell Mrs. Haydn?" he asked, still gravely supporting her.

"By all means," was her happy answer through shining tears; "now--this
moment," leading him away. "Joy does not kill."

It did not kill; it only braced the grateful sufferer for the ordeal set
for the next day.

"Find my boy as soon as you can and bring him to me," was her prayer;
and with a sense of comfort long a stranger, the mother slept peacefully
on this, her last night perhaps, of blindness.

The next day she was made ready for her couch, where she was to lie in
perfect quiet after the operation. At two o'clock, Dr. Douglas, with two
young assistants, entered easily and cheerfully upon his task.

"Are you strong enough to witness it?" he asked in alow voice, as Doris
took her stand.

She bowed her head, and the work began. It was neither long nor
difficult. A little cocaine in the eye, a quick, perpendicular incision,
the deft scooping from the orifice of a hard, pearly ball like an opal
setting, a cleansing of film by one skillful sweep, and all was over.

"Close the eye for a moment," was his order, as incomplete silence the
trio hung upon the result.

"Now