ient!'

In the morning Mr. Hilton in reporting to Lady de Lannoy told her that he
considered it would be necessary to keep his patient very quiet, both in
mind and body. In the course of the conversation he said:

'Anything which might upset him must be studiously avoided. He is not an
easy patient to deal with; he doesn't like people to go near him. I
think, therefore, it will be well if even you do not see him. He seems
to have an odd distrust of people, especially of women. It may be that
he is fretful in his blindness, which is in itself so trying to a strong
man. But besides, the treatment is not calculated to have a very buoyant
effect. It is apt to make a man fretful to lie in the dark, and know
that he has to do so for indefinite weeks. Pilocarpin, and salicylate of
soda, and mercury do not tend towards cheerfulness. Nor do blisters on
the forehead add to the content of life!'

'I quite understand,' said Stephen, 'and I will be careful not to go near
him till he is well. Please God! it may bring him back his sight. Thank
you a thousand times for your determination to stay with him.'

So it was that for more than two weeks Harold was kept all alone. No one
attended him but the Doctor. He slept in the patient's room for the
whole of the first week, and never had him out of sight for more than a
few minutes at a time. He was then able to leave him alone for longer
periods, and settled himself in the bedroom next to him. Every hour or
two he would visit him. Occasionally he would be away for half a day,
but never for more. Stephen rigidly observed the Doctor's advice
herself, and gave strict orders that his instructions were to be obeyed.

Harold himself went through a period of mental suffering. It was agony
to him to think of Stephen being so near at hand, and yet not to be able
to see her, or even to hear her voice. All the pain of his loss of her
affection seemed to crowd back on him, and with it the new need of
escaping from her unknown. More than ever he felt it would not do that
she should ever learn his identity. Her pity for him, and possibly her
woman's regard for a man's effort in time of stress, might lead through
the gates of her own self-sacrifice to his restoration to his old place
in her affections. Nay! it could not be his old place; for at the close
of those days she had learned of his love for her.

CHAPTER XXXV--A CRY

The third week had nearly elapsed, and as