s, till Torpenhow came up to her
on the steamer and without preface began to tell the story of Dick's
blindness, suppressing a few details, but dwelling at length on the
miseries of delirium. He stopped before he reached the end, as though he
had lost interest in the subject, and went forward to smoke. Maisie was
furious with him and with herself.

She was hurried on from Dover to London almost before she could ask for
breakfast, and--she was past any feeling of indignation now--was bidden
curtly to wait in a hall at the foot of some lead-covered stairs while
Torpenhow went up to make inquiries. Again the knowledge that she was
being treated like a naughty little girl made her pale cheeks flame. It
was all Dick's fault for being so stupid as to go blind.

Torpenhow led her up to a shut door, which he opened very softly. Dick
was sitting by the window, with his chin on his chest. There were three
envelopes in his hand, and he turned them over and over. The big man
who gave orders was no longer by her side, and the studio door snapped
behind her.

Dick thrust the letters into his pocket as he heard the sound. 'Hullo,
Topr! Is that you? I've been so lonely.'

His voice had taken the peculiar flatness of the blind. Maisie pressed
herself up into a corner of the room. Her heart was beating furiously,
and she put one hand on her breast to keep it quiet. Dick was staring
directly at her, and she realised for the first time that he was blind.

Shutting her eyes in a rail-way carriage to open them when she pleased
was child's play. This man was blind though his eyes were wide open.

'Torp, is that you? They said you were coming.' Dick looked puzzled and
a little irritated at the silence.

'No; it's only me,' was the answer, in a strained little whisper. Maisie
could hardly move her lips.

'H'm!' said Dick, composedly, without moving. 'This is a new phenomenon.
Darkness I'm getting used to; but I object to hearing voices.'

Was he mad, then, as well as blind, that he talked to himself? Maisie's
heart beat more wildly, and she breathed in gasps. Dick rose and began
to feel his way across the room, touching each table and chair as he
passed. Once he caught his foot on a rug, and swore, dropping on his
knees to feel what the obstruction might be. Maisie remembered him
walking in the Park as though all the earth belonged to him, tramping
up and down her studio two months ago, and flying up the gangway of the
Channel steamer