t, and I felt--it might have
been some subtle thought-transference--that the thing he had it in his
mind to discuss with me was one which only an extremity of trouble
would have induced him to discuss with any man.

"Dinner was announced almost before our first greetings were over, and
an excellent dinner it was--cooked by an old woman who, he declared,
had virtually ruled him and the house ever since he could remember,
and waited upon by the man, who also attended to his master's peculiar
needs with the utmost swiftness and dexterity. The household, I
subsequently learned, consisted of only these two, an elderly
housemaid, and the white-haired coachman who had driven me from the
station.

"'Why they stay with me in this out-of-the-way place, without a
grumble, all the year round, I can't see,' said my host, after our
meal was over and we were once more alone in the library. 'And, by the
way,' he added, turning his face toward me suddenly,--I don't know
whether I have mentioned that he had a particularly handsome
face,--'apropos of seeing, what I have not seen before I shall have no
further chance of informing myself about now, for I have become, in
these last six months, completely blind.'

"The unexpected horror of the announcement, the shock of it, left me
for the moment speechless. But I looked at him and saw, what I suppose
I might in a more direct light have noticed before, that his eyes had
the dull, dumb stare of blindness. Before the inarticulate sound of
pity I made could have reached him, he continued:

"'I used to tell myself, quite sincerely, I think, that as long as I
had an eye or an ear left I'd not waste my time envying any other man.
Nature seems to have been afraid I'd see too much, so she has cut off
my powers of vision. That is the great sorrow that has come to me. The
great joy, if I may accept it (and it is about that that I have been
driven by my conscience to consult you), is that I have found--or
perhaps, as that suggests a certain amount of activity on my part,
I'd better say _Fate_ has found for me--here, living at my very gates,
a woman who loves me!'

"He appeared to dread interruption, for he went on hurriedly:
'Extraordinary, isn't it? But let me tell you how it happened. I've a
garden out there to the south, and last summer, soon after this thing
first came upon me, I used to have myself wheeled there and left in
the shade for hours to think things out where I could feel light and