as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and
his eyelids move, and consequently his brain is in a state of constant
irritation and distraction."

"Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?"

"And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure
him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical
operation--namely, to remove these irritant bodies."

"And then he will be sane?"

"Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen."

"Thank Heaven for science!" said old Yacob, and went forth at once to tell
Nunez of his happy hopes.

But Nunez's manner of receiving the good news struck him as being cold and
disappointing.

"One might think," he said, "from the tone you take, that you did not care
for my daughter."

It was Medina-sarote who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons.

"_You_ do not want me," he said, "to lose my gift of sight?"

She shook her head.

"My world is sight."

Her head drooped lower.

"There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things--the flowers,
the lichens among the rocks, the lightness and softness on a piece of fur,
the far sky with its drifting down of clouds, the sunsets and the stars.
And there is _you_. For you alone it is good to have sight, to see
your sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful hands
folded together... It is these eyes of mine you won, these eyes that hold
me to you, that these idiots seek. Instead, I must touch you, hear you,
and never see you again. I must come under that roof of rock and stone and
darkness, that horrible roof under which your imagination stoops...
No; you would not have me do that?"

A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him. He stopped, and left the thing a
question.

"I wish," she said, "sometimes----" She paused.

"Yes," said he, a little apprehensively.

"I wish sometimes--you would not talk like that."

"Like what?"

"I know it's pretty--it's your imagination. I love it, but _now_----"

He felt cold. "_Now_?" he said faintly.

She sat quite still.

"You mean--you think--I should be better, better perhaps-----"

He was realising things very swiftly. He felt anger, indeed, anger at the
dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding--a
sympathy near akin to pity.

"_Dear_," he said, and he could see by her whiteness how intensely
her spirit pressed against the things she could not say. He put his arms
about her,