is a possibility
of the removal of the cause of your purpose.'

'What do you mean?' gasped Harold. He was afraid to think outright and
to the full what the other's words seemed to imply.

'I mean,' said the other solemnly, 'that there is a possibility, more
than a possibility, that you may recover your sight!' As he spoke there
was a little break in his voice. He too was somewhat unnerved at the
situation.

Harold lay still. The whole universe seemed to sway, and then whirl
round him in chaotic mass. Through it at length he seemed to hear the
calm voice:

'At first I could not be sure of my surmise, for when I used the
ophthalmoscope your suffering was too recent to disclose the cause I
looked for. Now I am fairly sure of it. What I have since heard from
you has convinced me; your having suffered from rheumatic fever, and the
recrudescence of the rheumatic pain after your terrible experience of the
fire and that long chilling swim with so seemingly hopeless an end to it;
the symptoms which I have since noticed, though they have not been as
enlightening to me as they might be. Your disease, as I have diagnosed
it, is an obscure one and not common. I have not before been able to
study a case. All these things give me great hopes.'

'Thank God! Thank God!' the voice from the bed was now a whisper.

'Thank God! say I too. This that you suffer from is an acute form of
inflammation of the optic nerve. It may of course end badly; in
permanent loss of sight. But I hope--I believe, that in your case it
will not be so. You are young, and you are immensely strong; not merely
muscularly, but in constitution. I can see that you have been an
athlete, and no mean one either. All this will stand to you. But it
will take time. It will need all your own help; all the calm restraint
of your body and your mind. I am doing all that science knows; you must
do the rest!' He waited, giving time to the other to realise his ideas.
Harold lay still for a long time before he spoke:

'Doctor.' The voice was so strangely different that the other was more
hopeful at once. He had feared opposition, or conflict of some kind. He
answered as cheerily as he could:

'Yes! I am listening.'

'You are a good fellow; and I am grateful to you, both for what you have
done and what you have told me. I cannot say how grateful just yet; hope
unmans me at present. But I think you deserve that I should tell you the
truth!' The