EVELYN woke that morning out of one of those cruel, dreamless sleeps that seem for a little while on waking to have expunged all memory, and he lay a few minutes conscious vaguely of something a little wrong, but for the moment not knowing where he was, and not caring to make the effort to guess. Then suddenly, like the stroke of a black wing across the sky, memory came home for the day. Whenever he woke in the hereafter he would awake to that, to his maimed, ruined life. The knowledge of it was more unbearable to-day than it had been yesterday; to-morrow it would be worse; it would keep growing worse.

Then out of that utter darkness there grew a little light. It might have been even more desperate—how was that? Then he remembered Madge. She had seen, and the worst of all that he had imagined was not true.

This morning he felt within himself a sudden accession of strength; his long sleep-acting with his extraordinary recuperative powers, had set fresh tides of vitality on the flow. Something had happened lately which in spite of all, interested him—ah, yes, the gradual compensating sensitiveness in his hands. He had played a whole partie of picquet with Madge, using those cards with raised indexes. The partie had only taken an hour—not bad for a beginning; to-day perhaps he would be a little quicker. To-day also these bandages that worried him with their close-clinging, sticky feeling would be removed, and with regard to them he could not help half-thinking that when they were gone, some light, however dim, must reach him. Surely the blackness would become a sort of grey. It was unreasonable, he knew well, but he could not help feeling that it must be so. But the fact that he thought about the picquet he had played and the greater celerity with which he was going to play it, even the idea, which he himself knew to be purely imaginary, that he would not feel so terribly alone and in the dark when these bandages were removed, all pointed one way: he looked, or tried to look, forward instead of brooding backwards. And in such matters, as indeed in all others, the will is the deed, provided only that the will be undivided. So for the time the utter blackness of his waking moments was gone, the tiny things of life, as well as life’s ultimate possibilities, still retained their interest, and while he waited for his breakfast, he kept feeling with his nimble, hovering hands at all objects within reach: the woolliness of the blankets, the cool texture of the sheets, a certain slipperiness of counterpane, which eventually he determined to be silk-covered. Then there was wall-paper above his head; there was a pattern on that, and with both hands he traced his way up the slight raising of the design, stopping often, visualising to himself what the picture of the course of his fingers would be like.... There was a spray of some sort; it branched to the left and ended in narrow, slender leaves. On the right it went higher before it branched; there were leaves there, too, and above again there started a stem like the one he had traced a minute before. Yes; it repeated here, for first to the left went out a thinner stem with narrow leaves; then again to the right it branched, and narrow leaves forked out from it. He had seen it, of course, before, on the evening he arrived here, but he could not remember it from that.... Thin stem and narrow leaves—ah, a Morris paper of willow twigs! But the feeling fingers had given it him; without this exploration he could not have known it.

This was an enormous advance, and, without pause, for he instinctively knew the step that came through the dressing-room adjoining, he called out:

“Oh, Madge, such a discovery!” he cried. “Blanket here, sheet here, a coverlet with silk on the top, and the paper—it is a Morris willow paper. I found that out. And I want breakfast.”

Yet somehow Madge’s heart sank at his elation. The Evelyn who spoke was the old Evelyn: it was in such a voice and with such joy of discovery that he had told her at Pangbourne how the purple of the clematis would heighten the value of the pink and butter-haired Jewess who sat in the centre. There was just the same triumphant ring about it. And as such it was unnatural; she feared he was recovering too quickly: for this elation there would be a corresponding depression. It was too sudden to satisfy her. All this was instantaneous and instinctive; she feared really without knowing she feared. But she had come prepared for the further development of his newly-awakened interest in the senses that resided in fingers, and had brought with her some small objects of baffling shape. She had, too, in her hand Philip’s letter.

The first two or three were easy to him. A knife certainly, but a knife with no edge to it. And of this he talked.

“Dessert knife,” he said. “No, not dessert knife, because the blade of a dessert knife would, anyhow, be as cold as the handle, even if both were made of metal. And the blade of this is warmer than the handle. Oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes! Cold handle, warmer blade. Oh, Madge, how easy. Paper-knife of course; silver handle, ivory cutter. Ask another.”

“I haven’t asked how you are yet,” said she.

“Quite well. And I want breakfast. I say, Madge, do you know just for the moment, I don’t mind being blind. You see there’s a new sense to cultivate. I always love experiments. Ah, damn it, there’s no colour left. But there is shape; somehow, I feel there’s a lot to learn in shape. There’s warmth, too; of course I knew that ivory was warmer—less cold than metal, but now I have found it true without help. Give me another.”

This time it was an absurd Dutch cow, spindle-legged and huge of body and head, a cream-jug cow, into which the cream was put via an aperture in the back, on which sat a gigantic fly, and from which, via the mouth, it was conveyed to tart. This was puzzling, and he thought aloud over it.

“Four legs,” he said, “as thin as a stag’s. So where’s the head? That won’t do; horn each side, and—good Lord! what’s this on the middle of the back? It’s movable, too. Shall I break anything?”

“Not if you are not violent.”

“Well, a big head with a switch-horn, and a mouth, why it’s from ear to ear. And a lid on the abortion’s back. Tail—is it a tail; oh, yes, it must be, it comes from there—curled up till it nearly reaches the hole in the back.”

He paused a moment, feeling it with nimble fingers, and though Madge could not see his forehead, she knew from his mouth that he was frowning. Then it came to him.

“Dutch cow,” he cried. “There’s an insect, a fly, I should think, sitting on the hole at its back, where you put the cream in. And it comes out of its mouth, you know. Looks rather as if it was being sick.”

Madge’s letter slipped to the ground as she applauded this.

“Give me that letter,” he said. “I’ll tell you whom it is from. Oh, there’s nurse; is it breakfast? I am so hungry. I’ll tell you about the letter afterwards.”

Then for a moment he was silent, and his mouth grew grave. He had insisted late the evening before on being shaved, and the smooth chin, the smooth upper lip, were clean below the white bandages. The nurse had been confederate to this.

“You see, the bandages are coming off to-morrow,” he had said, “and Madge would hate to see me with this awful stubble. Sometimes, nurse, I usen’t to shave before breakfast, and she always cut me—figuratively, you know—till I did. You’ll find a razor about somewhere. Clip it first, please.”

So to-day he had cleanness of lip and chin, and now when the breakfast was being brought in, Madge drew her thumb and fourth finger down from his cheek to meet and pinch his chin.

“You were afraid I should cut you,” she said gently.

“Yes, so I got shaved by nurse. Ah, Madge, sit on the bed, just there, and see me have breakfast. Have you had yours, by-the-way?”

Madge recalled the events of the morning.

“I don’t think I have,” she said.

“Then may we have another cup, nurse?” said he. “Oh, it’s bacon, I can smell bacon. Now, Madge, I’m boss of this show. You may think you were going to feed me; not at all—I’m going to feed you. How elusive bacon is. Are you sure the plate is there? Oh, I felt it, then.”

Here the nurse intervened, but with laughter.

“Oh, Mr. Dundas, do lie quiet, and we will give you your breakfast. Yes, another cup. I’ll send for one. But your bed will be ‘all over’ bacon.”

Madge made a negative sign to her. “There, you’ve got a piece,” she said. “Raise it slowly, you clumsy boy! That’s right; now wait. Your hand is really very steady. There!”

And she slipped it off the fork into her mouth.

“Oh, Madge,” he cried, “how greedy! I thought I was going to get it. And I can’t manage everything. I’ll give you bacon if you’ll give me toast and butter.”

So she buttered the toast, and they ate it like children, bite and bite about, and Evelyn chivied bacon round the plate, and fed now himself and now her. The extra cup lingered on its way, and one cup did for them, and all this to Madge was a sort of rehearsal of what would be. And it was a rehearsal of the best possible. For what if his gaiety, his interest in this new game was but a last flare-up? He could not feel this childish excitement in the entrancing sport of feeding each other, always. Besides, even if he did, she herself did not know all yet. What horror perhaps awaited her under the bandages of that swathed face? Tender and womanly and loving as she was, she could not help wondering as to that. She had put up her hand for guidance and leading; she wanted nothing else. But she wanted to be led very strongly, very firmly.

Then when breakfast was done, Evelyn went straight back to this identification game. A match-box was easy, because of its rough sides, a cigarette could not be a pencil, because of its smell. “And——”

“Oh, the letter!” he said.

“Dear, it’s quite impossible,” said Madge. “I’ll tell you whom it is from with pleasure; in fact I meant to talk to you about it. I brought it up here for that purpose, to read it to you——”

But he interrupted again, rather peevishly.

“Ah, that’s finished then,” he said, dropping the envelope.

“What nonsense; you can’t guess,” said she.

“It’s no question of guessing. You brought a letter in with you, and didn’t mention it. You knew I shouldn’t—see. You were meaning to talk about it afterwards. Well, it’s either the Hermit or Philip. Besides, if the Hermit wrote to you, you would have told me. No, it’s Philip.”

This was no more than ordinary reason could have done.

“What does he say?” asked Evelyn in a harsh, dry tone. “Does he say he is very sorry, and it serves us right? That is the correct attitude, I should think.”

Madge put a cigarette in his lips.

“Won’t you smoke?” she asked.

“No, it doesn’t taste. It’s like smoking in a tunnel. About Philip now?”

“He doesn’t take the correct attitude,” said she. “If he had, how could I have wanted to talk to you about him? He wants to help us, Evelyn. And he will arrive here to-night, unless we stop him on his way at Inverness or Golspie.”

The corners of his mouth were compressed; she knew he was frowning.

“Philip?” he said. “That isn’t Philip.”

“It wasn’t perhaps,” said Madge, “but it is, I think. Things have happened—Mr. Merivale is dead. Philip was there.”

“Dead?” he asked.

“Yes; I only know about it from Philip. Oh, yes, you have guessed right. I can only tell you what he said. Mr. Merivale died because—because sorrow, pain were revealed to him. He died very suddenly—that I gather, and he died terribly, somehow. I know no more than what I tell you.”

Evelyn was silent a little.

“Yet he was the happiest man I ever saw,” he said. “I used to feel like a convict in chains beside him. What does it all mean? Have we all got to suffer in proportion——”

Again he broke off.

“And Philip is coming here?” he asked. Then his voice got suddenly shriller and more staccato. “I won’t see him!” he cried. “He has come to gloat over me. My God, is it not enough——”

Madge laid her two hands on his chest, pressing him gently down again.

“No, my darling,” she said, “he will not come for that.”

“Well, then, to make love to you again,” he cried. “He knows I am a cripple, a blind man, a blot on the earth!”

Madge gave a great sigh.

“Ah, why say things you don’t mean?” she said. “And why make those dagger-thrusts at me, that cannot touch me? No, don’t go on. Be silent, dear, or else beg my pardon, and his. I am sorry I should have to ask that, but you have said what is abominable! Oh, I don’t want words. Just nod your head, my darling, and that will mean it is said. But for the sake of love, I must have that token.”

“Why does he come here, then?” he asked.

Madge could not reply for the moment; she felt so sick at heart and helpless. She had fancied, poor thing, that she had catalogued, so to speak, all the troubles and difficulties which Evelyn had to face, which she had to face with him, but here was a fresh one, that attitude of suspicion which besets those who have a sense missing, and who imagine that even those whom they love and trust most may be taking advantage of their defect. Had he been able to see her face, the absolute frankness of her expression, the candour of her eyes would have made it impossible that the merest shadow of suspicion should have crossed his mind, that peevish cry “he has come to gloat over me or to make love to you,” could not have crossed his lips, for there would have been no impulse in his mind which could determine the words. Yet they had been spoken by him, fretfully, irritably, all but causelessly.

But cause there had been, and that cause was an instinct to ascribe the worst motive to the action of others instead of assuming the best. That was to be a foe to him more bitter and relentless than his sightlessness; even that which his bandages concealed would not draw so deeply on the healthful spring of kindly sanity which alone can carry a man smiling and indulgent through the frets of the world.

But for the present Madge restored his balance.

“Oh, Evelyn,” she said, “don’t disappoint me, dear, or make yourself bitter. You have been so brave and so splendid. Philip is coming here—or proposes to come because—he is sorry for you, because in spite of the injury we did him he still loves me—why not? But when you ask if he is coming to make love to me, then, dear, you let something which is not yourself speak for you. You utter counterfeit coin. It rings false. Besides, you have not heard his letter yet; I will read it you. And then you shall take back what you said, but did not mean to say.”

She read it through, every word.

“And now, dear?” she said.

But the corners of his mouth were tremulous, and that was enough; she knew well why he could not speak. So she kissed him again, and no more was said.

Lady Dover usually came up to see Evelyn after breakfast, and thus it was quite natural that she should be there when Dr. Inglis made his morning visit. She had already asked him whether she might be there when the bandages were removed, and so, when he came in now, she said:

“We are going to make quite a little festival of congratulation this morning, Mr. Dundas—that is to say, if you and Dr. Inglis will allow me to stop and see how wonderfully Sir Francis’ surgery and Dr. Inglis’ doctoring have succeeded.”

So while this was going on, she and Madge sat in the window, looking out on to the broad sunny day. The bracken on the hillsides was already beginning to turn colour, and Lady Dover said in a low voice, for fear Evelyn should hear, and be wounded, that the gold of the sunlight striking the gold of the bracken made each appear more golden. There was time, indeed, for a good deal of leisurely art-criticism of this nature, for the unswathing of his face, the gentle withdrawal of the lint dressings from the healed wounds took time, and more than once the nurse went out to get more water for the sponging away of the gum of plaster. For Dr. Inglis, kind man of silent sympathy as he was, knew well what this moment must inevitably be to Madge—knew the torture of suspense in which she must be awaiting the sight of her husband’s face. Brave as he well knew her to be, he knew also that she would have here to summon her bravery to her aid; and he wanted to make it as easy for her as he could, and thus took great pains to render the sight as little painful as might be. But he could do so little; whatever sponging and smoothing was possible, it still was so small a salvage. For the shot had struck him sideways, ricocheting off the rock, and on his forehead there was a long wound, healed indeed as well as it would ever be healed, but the outer skin had been destroyed, and it showed a long, pink line, as if perhaps some corrosive match had been struck on it. Another such went across the right cheek, another had crossed the left eyebrow, leaving a little hairless lane between the two severed sides of it. One eyelid had been struck and torn before the pellet did its deadlier work, and the other, though intact and drawn down over the hole of the eye-socket, was not like the eyelid of a man whose eyes were closed in rest or sleep, swelling gently over the eyeball and lying on the lower lashes; it hung straight, like the blind of a window, for there was nothing beneath to cause its curvature.

His kind, twinkle-eyed Scotch face had grown grave over his operations, but he guessed what the suspense to Madge was, and rightly decided that nothing could be gained by lengthening it. Then he completed the shaving operations which the nurse had begun the evening before to the uncovered part of the face, and brushed into order his thick brown hair. Finally he adjusted a pair of large dark spectacles. Evelyn demurred at this.

“What is that for?” he asked.

“Ah, that is necessary,” said the doctor; “we have to protect the—the place of the worst injury. You will always have to wear them, I am afraid. And now I think we are ready.”

Madge got up from the window-seat. Though she had wished Lady Dover to be there, at this moment she cared not one farthing who was there or who was not. It was only she and Evelyn who mattered; Piccadilly might have buzzed round them, and she would have been unconscious of the crowd.

And she looked—she saw——

For one moment she stood there facing him, her breath suspended, only conscious of some deep-seated terror and dismay, and her face grew white. Once she tried to speak and could not, for she knew that some dreadful exclamation alone could pass her lips. Lady Dover had got up, too, and stood by her; she looked not at Evelyn at all, but at Madge, and before the pause had grown appreciable she whispered to her—

“Say anything. Don’t be a coward.”

It was therefore as well that Lady Dover had come with her, otherwise anything might have happened, Madge might have screamed almost, or she might have left the room without saying a word, so dreadful was the shock. But Lady Dover’s words were a lash to her, and the power of making an effort came back.

“Ah, dearest Evelyn,” she said, “how nice to see your face again.”

For a moment the tremor in her voice, the imminent sob in her throat, all but mastered her. Yet all this week he had been so brave, and for very shame she could not but put on the semblance of bravery and try to infuse her speech with a grain of courage.

“It is good, it is good to see you,” she said, and the first physical horror began to fade a little as her love, that eternal, abiding principle, slid out from under the paralysis of the other. “All those bandages gone, all the plaster and lint gone. You look yourself, do you know, too—just, just yourself.”

She turned an appealing eye on Lady Dover; that was unnecessary, because she was quite prepared to speak as soon as Madge stopped.

“I must congratulate you too, Mr. Dundas,” she said in her neat, precise tones. “Why, you look, as Madge said, quite natural; does he not, Madge? And really I think dark spectacles are rather becoming. I shall get some myself.”

Evelyn had not spoken yet; but reasonably or not, for he had been quite unreasonably suspicious once before that morning, he thought he detected some insincerity in these protestations. And with one quick movement of his hand he took the spectacles off.

“Are they really becoming?” he asked. “Or do you like me better without, Madge?”

Again she saw, and, with a movement uncontrollable, she hid her own eyes for a moment. But Lady Dover again came to the rescue.

“Ah, Doctor Inglis won’t allow that, Mr. Dundas,” she said.

But Evelyn still held them away from his face. Brutal as it all was, the thing had to be gone through once, and it was on the whole better to do it now.

“Ah, I asked Madge,” he said quietly.

As he spoke, with his other hand he let his fingers dwell with that firm yet fluttering movement over his eyes. That straight, drawn-down lid was visualised by him, that tear in the other eyelid was visualised also. Then the hovering finger-tips traced the course of the pellet through the eyebrow, and felt, like a dog nosing a hot scent, the course of the scar where another had crossed his forehead. To that constructive touch the truth was becoming hideously plain. And deliberately, as he felt and traced, he set himself to believe the worst. He sat as judge to weigh the evidence of his fingers as they bore witness to the state of this wrecked face of his. Again and again, in days past, he had said, and meant also, that he did not wish to go below the surface of things; the eyebrow, the curve of the mouth, the light of the eye itself, as he had said to the Hermit, were enough for him, there was symbol enough there. And since this choice was so instinctive and natural to himself, it was not possible to him to dissociate others from it, and as, with terrible certainty, he framed to himself what he looked like, he put himself into Madge’s place, and seeing with her eyes, framed also the conclusion which he believed to be inevitable. Yet she had seen him before, the nurse had told him so, and after that he had heard with ears that somehow seemed quickened in their sense even as touch was, the authentic ring of love in her voice. Or had he been deceived in that?

But thought, like the electric current through wires, travels many miles in an interval that is not appreciably greater than that which it takes to go a yard or two, and the rapid brushing of his fingers over his face had been almost as speedy. So when Madge answered (her thought too had gone far) he was not conscious that there had been a pause. She had complete command of her voice now.

“How can anybody be so silly?” she said. “I like you best without spectacles, dear, but as you have to wear them, there’s the end of it. And”—she was embarked on a big lie, and did not mind—“you look so much better than you did when I saw you a week ago when your face was being dressed, that I should scarcely recognise you. At least I feel now as if I should scarcely have recognised you then; now there is no need for recognition. Put them on again, Evelyn; there is a strong light.”

She gave a little gasp at the end of this. Lady Dover heard it, and laid a quick hand of sympathy on her shoulder. But Evelyn did not; for the present he was convinced, and that conviction, like some burst of sudden sound, shut out all other impressions.

“Here we are, then,” he said. “This is the new me; positively the first appearance. A favourable reception was accorded by a sympathetic audience. And now—are you still there, Dr. Inglis?—what manner of reason is there that I should not get up?”

“You want to?” he asked.

“Why, certainly.”

“Then, there is an excellent reason why you should. When my patients want to do a thing it is an indication, generally correct, that it is good for them. Yes, get up by all means.”

Again the boyish delight in the new game took possession of Evelyn; yet that delight, and the pity of it, stabbed Madge like a sword.

“And let me do it myself,” he cried. “Let my clothes be put by my bed, let my bath be put there, and let me be left quite alone. Madge, I bet you I shall be dressed in an hour. And the parting in my hair will be straight,” he added excitedly.

This also was agreed to, with the provision that if he felt faint or tired during these operations he was at once to desist, and lie down again and ring his bell. The nurse busied herself with the preparations for this great event, and the other three went out together.

Dr. Inglis paused in the corridor outside the room.

“Mrs. Dundas,” he said, “you have got to keep that up, you know. You did it well, and I don’t think you ought to have done differently. Come, come, we shall have you fainting next.”

Poor Madge had been utterly overwrought by this scene, and indeed as the doctor spoke she swayed and staggered where she stood. But they got her to a chair, in which she sat silent with closed eyes for a minute or so. Then she looked up at him.

“Shall I get used to it?” she asked. “Please tell me if there is a reasonable chance of that?”

“Certainly there is—we will come down in a minute, Lady Dover, if you will go on—yes, certainly, there is much more than a chance. You will get used to it. I did not know, by the way, that your husband had been told you had seen him before; but that does not matter now. But it is idle to pretend that you will get used to it at once. You won’t, you can’t. You will have to be patient, and all the time you must keep the strictest guard on yourself, to prevent the least suspicion getting to his mind that you are shocked by his appearance. He knows, poor fellow, more or less what he looks like. The curious blind sense of touch is developing in him with extraordinary rapidity. But you convinced him just now—his whole face flushed—that you don’t mind. You must keep that up, otherwise no one can say what may happen.”

“What do you mean?” asked she, still rather faintly.

“Just that. His hold on life is strong enough, quite strong enough, but it comes to him now mainly through one channel. That is you.”

The rather cruel abruptness of this was intentional and well calculated. It did not dismay Madge, but just braced her. She got up from the chair.

“That will be all right, then,” she said.

“I am sure it will. But as I shall go away to-day, I want to say a little more to you. His recovery, his recuperative power, is excellent, but there is one thing which I do not altogether like. His moods vary with great rapidity and great intensity. No doubt that was always so to some extent with him.”

“Yes,” said Madge eagerly, “it is just that which is so like him. Surely that is all for the good, that he should be so like himself?”

“Yes, within limits. But, as I need not tell you, he has been through a frightful shock, not only physical but mental, and quiet is the best restorative of all. Keep him amused and interested in things as much as you can; but also, as far as you can, keep him from feeling extravagantly. His mental barometer is jumping up and down; in proportion as it goes unnaturally high, so it will also go unnaturally low. That is frightfully tiring; it is to the mind what fever, a temperature that jumps about, is to the body.”

He paused a moment.

“Of course I know the difficulties,” he went on. “It is no use saying ‘Be tranquil,’ but you can certainly induce tranquility in him by being tranquil yourself, by surrounding him with tranquility. Keep his spirits level by keeping your own level. It won’t be easy. Now, if you are quite yourself again, shall we join Lady Dover?”

Evelyn spent several hours that afternoon downstairs, but the excitement of coming down for the first time tired him, and before Philip’s arrival he had gone up to bed again. All day, too, to Madge’s great disquietude, his spirits had been jumping up and down; at one time he would go on with the identification game with the most absorbed enthusiasm; then again, even in the middle of it, he would suddenly stop.

“Oh, it’s no use,” he said. “Why, it takes me half an hour to find out what is on that table, and it would take me a week to find out what the room was like. Take me on to the terrace, will you, Madge, and let me walk up and down a bit.”

This had been medically permitted, and with his arm in hers they strolled up and down in the warm sunlight. Evelyn sniffed the fresh air with extraordinary gusto.

“Ah, that’s good,” he said; “it is warm, yet it has got the touch of autumn in it. What sort of a day is it, Madge? Is it a blue day or a yellow day?

“Well, the sky is blue——” she began.

“Yes, I didn’t suppose it was yellow,” said he. “But what’s the rest? Is the air between us and the hills yellow or blue? Oh, Lord, what would I not give for one more sight of it! I would look so carefully just this once. Tell me about it, dear.”

So Madge, as well as she could, tried to make him see with her eyes. She told him of the brown, foam-flecked stream that wound and crawled in the shadowed gully below them, of the steep hillside opposite, that climbed out of the darkness into the broad, big sunlight of the afternoon, of the feathery birch trees, just beginning to turn yellow, that fringed the moor, of the bracken, a tone deeper in gold, of the warm greyness of the bare hill above, with its corries lying in shadow, and its topmost serrated outline cutting the sky with so clear and well-defined a line that the sky itself looked as if it was applique, fitted on to it. Away to the left was a pine wood, almost black as contrasted with the golden of the bracken, but the red trunks of the trees burned like flames in it. Beyond that again lay the big purple stretches of heather over which ran the riband of the road to Golspie. Then in the immediate foreground there was a clump of rowan trees, covered with red berries; they found but a precarious footing, so steeply did the ground plunge towards the river; but halfway down there was a broad, almost level plateau, across which flowed the burn. It was covered with grass and low bushes, bog-myrtle, she thought, and a big flock of sheep were feeding there. The shepherd had just sent the collie to fetch them up, and the running dog was like a yellow streak across the green.

Evelyn gave a great sigh.

“Thanks, dear,” he said. “Now shall we go in? Somehow, I don’t think I can stand any more just yet. I suppose one will get more used to it. Ah, how unfair, how damnably unfair!” he cried suddenly. “Why should I be robbed like this? I wish to God I had been born blind, so that I could never know how much I miss. But to give me sight, to give me a glimpse of the world, just to take it away again! How can that be just? And I did like it so. It was all so pleasant!”

Never before had Madge so felt the utter uselessness of words. How could words be made to reach him? Yet how, again, could the yearning of her whole soul to console and comfort him fail to reach him? What she said she hardly knew; she was but conscious of the outpourings of herself in pity and love. She held that poor blind head in her hands, she kissed the mouth, she kissed the scars, she pushed up the dark spectacles and kissed the dear, empty eyelids, and all the horror that had involuntarily made her shudder when first she saw his face was gone, melted, vanished. For it had been but a superficial thing, as little her true self, as little to be taken as an index of what her heart felt, as the sudden shudder of goose-flesh, and just now at any rate it was swept away. That she would feel it again, often and often, she did not doubt, but of that she took no heed whatever. This—this pity and love—which had come upon her like a flash of revelation—was her true and her best self, and though again and again she might fall back from it, her flesh wincing and being afraid, yet there would be always the memory of this moment to guide and direct her. There would be difficult times; the whole of the rest of her life would be difficult, but it no longer presented the appearance of impossibility. And how full and dear to her heart was Evelyn’s response.

“Oh, Madge,” he said, “the worst of all was the thought that you would shrink from me. I minded that so much more than anything. I should not have reproached you, I don’t think I should have done that even to myself, after guessing, as I have guessed, what I must be like, for I should have understood. But what I don’t understand is how it is you do not shrink. I don’t want to understand, either; it is quite enough for me that it is so. And when I am cross, as I shall be, and despondent, as I shall be, and odious, try to remember what I have said to you now. I want to be remembered by that.”

So that was his best moment, too.

Philip arrived by the dinner train that night with a couple of other guests, and when the rest of them went up at the usual early hour, to get a good night after the journey of the day in the fresh air, he and Madge lingered behind, for naturally he wanted to learn about Evelyn and also about her. Both also perhaps felt that it was inevitable that they should have one talk together; it could hardly have been otherwise.

It began abruptly enough. As soon as the door was shut behind the last of the outgoers she came towards him with hands outstretched.

“I know you don’t want me to say ‘thank you,’ Philip,” she said, “but I can’t help it. I can’t tell you how deeply I thank you.”

He held her hands for a moment, pressing them closely, and smiling at her.

“It is said, then. You mustn’t say it twice, you know. That is vain repetition, and we have so much to say to each other that we have no time for that. I also must say once that I thank you for letting me do what I can. It would have been easier for you to have refused my help and to have refused to see me. Also it would have been more conventional. Now, about that there is just one word more to be said, and it is this. You told me once you looked upon me as an elder brother. Well, you have got to do it again. I’m going to manage for you. You have got, you and Evelyn, to do as I tell you in practical matters, because I’m practical and you are not.”

A great lump rose in Madge’s throat. These days had tired her so; it was such an unutterable relief to have anything taken off her hands, to feel that the almost intolerable weight of the future was being shared by another. But for the moment she could not speak, and but just nodded to him.

“Now, I am the bearer of a message first of all,” he said, “and the message is from my mother. She wants you both—in fact, she insists on your coming down to Pangbourne for—for a period which she says had better be left indefinite. London, she truly says, is dust and ashes in September. It really would be the best plan, so will you join with me in persuading Evelyn, if persuasion is necessary?”

“Ah, Philip,” she said, “you cut me to the heart. And—and this makes it worse, that I accept your generosity for Evelyn’s sake. It is that which—which is so ruthless.”

Philip’s lip quivered a moment, but he went on bravely.

“Well, as an elder brother I recommend it, too,” he said; “for it is just that I want to be to you, dear. Ah, do you think I don’t guess?”

Madge got up, and drew a chair close to him.

“Tell me about yourself, if it does not hurt you to talk of that,” she said.

“No, I want you to know what has happened to me,” he said; “both because I have to ask your forgiveness for certain things——”

“Ah, don’t, don’t!” said she.

“Yes, you will see, and because perhaps what I have been through may help you. Well, Madge, I have been through deep waters, and waters as bitter as they were deep. For that month while I was in London I hated you and I hated him with such intensity that I think, but for the very hard work I did, I must have gone mad. And I think the only pleasure I felt was when I was the cause—indirectly anyhow—of his losing a large sum of money. I could have saved him that if I chose, but I did not choose. I must speak of that afterwards. But I loved you all the time I hated you, Madge, if you can understand that. All that was base and hard in me loathed you, because you had made me suffer; but there was something below, a very little thing, like a lump of leaven perhaps which still loved you, my infinitesimal better self. But all the time in London I did not know there was in me anything better than this worst.

“Then one morning I fainted, and they told me to ease off. So I went down into the country and stayed with the Hermit, who, I think, lived the happiest life that was ever lived on this earth. It was the contrast between him and me perhaps that first suggested to me whether it was worth while to hate, as I was hating, for that as far as I know was the beginning of what happened afterwards. It made me also throw away something I had bought in order to kill myself—never mind that. Then one night he talked about pain, on which he had turned his back, and told me that though he could not understand how or why it was necessary, it perhaps might be, and that he was willing himself, if so, to face anything that might be in store for him. And then, I must suppose that little lump of leaven began to work, because that night—we had talked also about free will—I asked myself if I chose, deliberately chose, to be bitter and hating. And I found I did not.

“It was not long after that—a week, I suppose—that the end came. By then I knew but this for certain, that I was not deliberately hard any longer. It was the contemplation of happiness and serenity that had produced that; I had begun also not to stare at a blank wall that had seemed to face me, but to say to myself that there was no wall except that of my own making. Do you know Watts’ picture of Hope? Of course you do. Well, I thought all my strings were broken, but they were not. There was just one left. But that I knew must inevitably break if I continued to be black and bitter. My bitterness had corroded it already.”

Philip paused a moment.

“I am jawing dreadfully about myself,” he said.

“Go on,” said she.

“Tom died in the night. I don’t want to tell you that in detail, but he died because he saw or thought he saw some revelation of the pain and sorrow of the world. Whether he imagined it or not, and whether what I thought I saw was imagination only, I don’t really care. He was sleeping in a hammock out of doors, and suddenly his cry rent the night. He called on God and on Christ. And when I went out I thought I saw a shadow like some dreadful goat skip from him. And he was dead.

“Now, how one learns anything I don’t know. But what I learned was pity for sorrow. And so, dear Madge, I am here.”

Again her hand sought his. “Oh, Philip, Philip,” she said. “What can I say to you? How could I guess what love was till I felt it? Ah, I don’t say that in excuse—you know that.”

“No, dear. It is no question of excuses, of course. And I have only told you all this that you may never need to look for any, and that you may understand that I am sorry for having been so bitter. And if you forgive that”—and the pressure of her hand answered him—“let us leave the past forever behind us, and look forward only. But it was better to have talked of it just once, so that we may dismiss it. Now, tell me about Evelyn.”

To Philip somehow she could pour out her heart in a way she could scarcely have done to anyone else, for the knowledge of what he had been through and of the bitterness from which he had emerged so unembittered threw open the golden gates of sympathy, and she spoke without reserve. She told him of the myriad dangers and difficulties that faced them, of the loss Evelyn had sustained which she could not yet estimate, which he, too, was only just beginning to realise, and which for a long time yet to come must daily grow more real to him. She spoke quite frankly, yet never without the utter sinking of herself, which is love, of his moods and transitions from boyish cheerfulness to a sort of dumb despair. She spoke finally of her first mortal horror when she saw his face, and her dread lest that should suddenly overmaster her, so that she should shrink from him and he should see it.

“But it is he,” she said, “whom I tremble for. He can stand it to-day, he will be able to stand it to-morrow, and for a week perhaps, or a month. But will it get easier for him to bear or more difficult? He can’t stand much more. He will break.”

“Ah, you mustn’t think about that,” said Philip. “It is no use adding up the sorrow and the pain that may be in front of one. One is meant just to bear the burden of the moment, and, God knows, it is heavy enough for you and him. Face difficulties as they arise, Madge, don’t make a sum of them and say the total is intolerable.”

He paused a moment.

“And let me bear all that you can shift on to me,” he said. “Because otherwise, you see, my coming here will be purposeless. And I hate, being a practical person, doing useless things.”