back from the Valley of the Shadow. She had not reached the door,
however, when Madame Bulteel entered the room.

"The doctor from New York has come," she said, holding out a note from
Dr. Rockwell. "He will be here in a couple of hours."

Fleda turned back towards the bed.

"Good luck!" she said. "You'll see, it will be all right."

"Certainly I'll see if it's all right," he said cheerfully. "Am I tidy?
Have I used Pears' soap?" He would have his joke at his own funeral if
possible.

"There are two hours to get you fit to be seen," she rejoined with
raillery, infected by his cheerfulness in spite of herself. "Madame
Bulteel is very brave. Nothing is too hard for her!"

An instant later she was gone, with her heart telling her to go back to
him, not to leave him, but yet with a longing stronger still driving her
to the open world, to which she could breathe her trouble in great gasps,
as she sped onward through the woods and by the river. To love a blind
man was sheer madness, but in her was a superstitious belief that he
would see again. It prevailed against the doubts and terrors. It made
her resent his own sense of fatality, his own belief that he would be in
darkness all his days.

In the room where he awaited the verdict of the expert, he kept saying to
himself: