y in time to meet your fiancee, you had better let
Kersley's man lend you a hand with your dressing. I will send him to
you."

He was at the door with the words. Noel heard him open it and go out. He
sat where Max had left him with a puzzled frown between his brows.

"I wish I knew the fellow's game," he murmured. "I wish--"

He broke off. What was the good of wishing? Moreover, to be quite
honest, perhaps he was more or less satisfied with things as they were.
Max had probably got over his disappointment to a certain extent by this
time. It was quite obvious that he had no desire or intention to reopen
the matter. No, on the whole perhaps it was indiscreet to probe too
deeply. Every man had a right to his own secrets. And meantime, Olga was
his--was his, and there remained this glorious possibility that his
sight might be restored also.

He put up his hands suddenly, covering those useless, tortured eyes. A
very curious tremor went through him. His heart began to throb thick and
hard. It seemed too good to be true. Since that first awful day he had
not fought against Fate, refraining himself even in his worst hours of
darkness and suffering, and now it seemed that Fate was going to be kind
after all. Like Job, he was to receive all--and more also--that he had
lost.

He broke into a quivering laugh. "Good old Job!" he said. "We're not all
such lucky beggars as that."

And then again that odd little tremor went through him. It was like a
warning, almost a presentiment. His hands fell. He sat straight and
still, as one waiting for a sign. No, such things didn't happen. Luck
like Job's was apocryphal, abnormal, outside the bounds of human
possibility. They might give him back his sight, but--He stopped here as
if brought up by a sudden obstacle.

"I wonder if I'm a fool to have that operation," he said. "I wonder
if--she--will like me as well if I get back my sight."

The doubt pressed cold at his heart. She had been so divinely kind to
him ever since the catastrophe. She had literally given herself up to
him, making his darkness light. And vaguely he knew that she had loved
the doing of it, had loved to know that he needed her. How would it be,
he asked himself, when he needed her thus no longer? Would she love him
as well in strength as in weakness? Would she be as near to him when he
no longer needed her to lead him by the hand?

He sprang to his feet with a gesture of fierce impatience. He flung the
doubt aw