ost
unattainable. How could a man with a face so mutilated that it was
grotesque, repellent, cultivate the delicate flower of friendship?
Doris loved him because she could not see him. When she could see, she
would cease to love. And there would be nothing left for
him--nothing. He would live on, obedient to the law of his being, a
sentient organism, eating and sleeping, thinking starkly, without joy
in the reluctant company of his fellows, his footsteps echoing
hollowly down the long corridor of the years, emptied of hope and all
those pleasant illusions by which man's spirit is sustained. But would
he? Would it be worth while?

"I must go back to work," he said at last.

Doris rose with him, holding him a moment.

"Presently I shall be able to come and _watch_ you work! I might help.
I know how to walk boom-sticks, to handle timber with a pike pole. I'm
as strong as an ox. See!"

She put her arms around him and heaved, lifting the hundred and eighty
pounds of his weight clear of the ground. Then she laughed, a low,
pleased chuckle, her face flushed with the effort, and turned into the
house.

Hollister heard her at the piano as he walked away, thundering out the
rollicking air of the "Soldier's Chorus", its naive exultance of
victory, it seemed to Hollister, expressing well her mood,--a victory
that might mean for him an abyss of sorrow and loneliness out of which
he might never lift himself.

CHAPTER XVIII

For a week Hollister nursed this fear which so depressed him, watching
the slow return of his wife's vision, listening to her talk of all
they could do together when her sight was fully restored. From doubt
of ocular treatment she changed to an impatient desire of whatever
benefit might lie in professional care. A fever of impatience to see
began to burn in her.

So Hollister took her out to Vancouver, thence to Seattle, on to San
Francisco, passing from each city to a practitioner of higher standing
in the next, until two men with great reputations, and consulting fees
in proportion, after a week of observation announced their verdict:
she would regain normal vision, provided so and so--and in the event
of such and such. There was some mystery about which they were
guarded. They spoke authoritatively about infusions into the vitreous
humor and subsequent absorption. They agreed in language too technical
for a layman to understand that the cause of Doris' blindness was
gradually disappearing. O