e last word. Hollister looked at Myra;
she held the boy pressed close to her breast. Her lips were parted,
her pansy-purple eyes were wide and full of alarm as she looked at
Hollister.

He felt his scarred face grow white. And when Doris turned toward him
to bend forward and look at him with that strange, peering gaze, he
covered his face with his hands.

CHAPTER XVII

"Everything is indistinct, just blurred outlines. I can't see colors
only as light and dark," Doris went on, looking at Hollister with that
straining effort to see. "I can only see you now as a vague form
without any detail."

Hollister pulled himself together. After all, it was no catastrophe,
no thunderbolt of fate striking him a fatal blow. If, with growing
clarity of vision, catastrophe ensued, then was time enough to shrink
and cower. That resiliency which had kept him from going before under
terrific stress stood him in good stead now.

"It seems almost too good to be true," he forced himself to say, and
the irony of his words twisted his lips into what with him passed for
a smile.

"It's been coming on for weeks," Doris continued. "And I haven't been
able to persuade myself it was real. I have always been able to
distinguish dark from daylight. But I never knew whether that was pure
instinct or because some faint bit of sight was left me. I have looked
and looked at things lately, wondering if imagination could play such
tricks. I couldn't believe I was seeing even a little, because I've
always been able to see things in my mind, sometimes clearly,
sometimes in a fog--as I see now--so I couldn't tell whether the
things I have seen lately were realities or mental images. I have
wanted so to see, and it didn't seem possible."

Asking about the stump had been a test, she told Hollister. She did
not know till then whether she saw or only thought she saw. And she
continued to make these tests happily, exulting like a child when it
first walks alone. She made them leave her and she followed them among
a clump of alders, avoiding the trunks when she came within a few
feet, instead of by touch. She had Hollister lead her a short distance
away from Myra and the baby. She groped her way back, peering at the
ground, until at close range she saw the broad blue and white stripes
of Myra's dress.

"I wonder if I shall continue to see more and more?" she sighed at
last, "or if I shall go on peering and groping in this uncertain,
fantastic way.