pain. The nerves of the eyes have been injured."

Hastily and tenderly he bound the handkerchief round the sightless eyes.
Having done so, he said to the nurse with unintentional quotation from
the Gospel of St. John, and a sad irony: "Let there be light."

It all gave him time to pull himself together and prepare for the moment
when he must tell Ingolby the truth. In one sense the sooner it was
told the better, lest Ingolby should suddenly discover it for himself.
Surprise and shock must be avoided. So now he talked in his low,
soothing voice, telling Ingolby that the operation had put him out of
danger, that the pain now felt came chiefly from the nerves of the
eye, and that quiet and darkness were necessary. He insisted on Ingolby
keeping silent, and he gave a mild opiate which induced several hours'
sleep.

During this time Rockwell prepared himself for the ordeal which must
be passed as soon as possible; gave all needed directions, and had a
conference with the assistant Chief Constable to whom he confided the
truth. He suggested plans for preserving order in excited Lebanon, which
was determined to revenge itself on Manitou; and he gave some careful
and specific instructions to Jowett the horse-dealer. Also, he had
conferred with Gabriel Druse, who had helped bear the injured man to
his own home. He had noted with admiration the strange gentleness of the
giant Romany as he, alone, carried Ingolby in his arms, and laid him
on the bed from which he was to rise with all that he had fought for
overthrown, himself the blind victim of a hard fate. He had noticed the
old man straighten himself with a spring and stand as though petrified
when Ingolby said: "Why don't you turn on the light?" As he looked round
in that instant of ghastly silence he had observed almost mechanically
that the old man's lips were murmuring something. Then the thought of
Fleda Druse shot into Rockwell's mind, and it harassed him during the
hours Ingolby slept, and after the giant Gipsy had taken his departure
just before the dawn.

"I'm afraid it will mean more there than anywhere else," he said sadly
to himself. "There was evidently something between those two; and she
isn't the kind to take it philosophically. Poor girl! Poor girl! It's a
bitter dose, if there was anything in it," he added.

He watched beside the sick-bed till the dawn stared in and his patient
stirred and waked, then he took Ingolby's hand, grown a little cooler,
in bot