t, it would be a complication if they ran into one
another. Margery helps me with all the things in which I am helpless;
and, oh Dicky, you would never believe how many they are! And the
awful, awful dark--a black curtain always in front of you, sometimes
seeming hard and firm, like a wall of coal, within an inch of your
face; sometimes sinking away into soft depths of blackness--miles and
miles of distant, silent, horrible darkness; until you feel you must
fall forward into it and be submerged and overwhelmed. And out of that
darkness come voices. And if they speak loudly, they hit you like
tapping hammers; and if they murmur indistinctly, they madden you
because you can't SEE what is causing it. You can't see that they are
holding pins in their mouths, and that therefore they are mumbling; or
that they are half under the bed, trying to get out something which has
rolled there, and therefore the voice seems to come from somewhere
beneath the earth. And, because you cannot see these things to account
for it, the variableness of sound torments you. Ah!--and the waking in
the morning to the same blackness as you have had all night! I have
experienced it just once,--I began my darkness before dinner last
night,--and I assure you, Deryck, I dread to-morrow morning. Think what
it must be to wake to that always, with no prospect of ever again
seeing the sunlight! And then the meals--"

"What! You keep it on?" The doctor's voice sounded rather strained.

"Of course," said Jane. "And you cannot imagine the humiliation of
following your food all round the plate, and then finding it on the
table-cloth; of being quite sure there was a last bit somewhere, and
when you had given up the search and gone on to another course,
discovering it, eventually, in your lap. I do not wonder my poor boy
would not let me come to his meals. But after this I believe he will,
and I shall know exactly how to help him and how to arrange so that
very soon he will have no difficulty. Oh, Dicky, I had to do it! There
was no other way."

"Yes," said the doctor quietly, "you had to do it." And Jane in her
blindness could not see the working of his face, as he added below his
breath: "You being YOU, dear, there was no other way."

"Ah, how glad I am you realise the necessity, Deryck! I had so feared
you might think it useless or foolish. And it was now or never; because
I trust--if he forgives me--this will be the only week-end I shall ever
have to spen