"

"Said he couldn't stand it to see you hurt. Said he would stand
outside the door, but that he couldn't come in. Said he would be right
there all the time. There's a great man, Mrs. Gage."

"And you are a very wise man, are you not!" said she suddenly, smiling
at him slowly, her dark eyes full upon him.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, so much you know about life and duty and the rights of everybody
else! If I had my eyes, I'd not be married! Did you ever stop to
think what you have been taking into your own hands here?"

"Go on," said he. "I've got it coming."

"Well, one thing you've forgotten. I've been a problem and a trouble
and a nuisance--yes. But I'm a woman! You treat me as though I were a
pawn, a doll. I'm tired of it. I ought to tell you something, for
fear you'll really go away, and give me no chance."

"I ought to have as much courage as you're showing now." He smiled,
wryly.

"Then, if you have courage, you ought to stay here and see things
through. You tell me this is right and this is not right--how do you
know? I owe you very much--but ought you to decide everything for me?
Let me also be the judge. If there's any problem in these matters,
anything unsaid, let's face it _all_. Cut into my eyes, but don't cut
into my soul any more. If you gave me back my sight, and did not give
me back every unsettled problem, with all the facts before me to settle
it at last, you would leave me with unhappiness hanging over me as long
as ever I lived. Not even my eyes would pay me for it."

She rose, stumbling, reaching out a hand to save herself; and he dared
not touch her hand even to aid her now.

"Oh, fine of you all," she said bitterly. "Did the Emperor of Prussia
ever do more? You, whom I have never seen in all my life! Any
situation that is hard here for you--take it. Haven't I done as much?
If there's any other fight on ahead unsettled for you, can't you fight
it out? Can't you give me the privilege--since you've been talking of
a woman's rights and privileges--to fight out my own battles too--to
fight out all of life's fights, even to take all of its losses? I'd
rather have it that way. That means I want to see you, who you are,
what you are, whether you are good, whether you are just, whether you
are light, whether----"

"You have a keen mind," said he slowly. "You're telling me to stay
here. If we could meet face to face as though you never had been
blind--why, then--I mig