he bandages over
the eyes and took them off. "It's seven in the morning, and the sun's
up, Chief, but it doesn't do you much good, you see."

The last two words were the purest accident, but it was a strange,
mournful irony, and Rockwell flushed at the thought of it. He saw
Ingolby's face turn grey, and then become white as death itself.

"I see," came from the bluish-white lips, as the stricken man made call
on all the will and vital strength in him.

For a long minute Rockwell held the cold hand in the grasp of one who
loves and grieves, but even so the physician and surgeon in him were
uppermost, as they should be, in the hour when his friend was standing
on the brink of despair, maybe of catastrophe irremediable. He did not
say a word yet, however. In such moments the vocal are dumb and the
blind see.

Ingolby heaved himself in the bed and threw up his arms, wresting them
from Rockwell's grasp.

"My God--oh, my God-blind!" he cried in agony. Rockwell drew the head
with the sightless eyes to his shoulder.

For a moment he laid one hand on the heart, that, suddenly still, now
went leaping under his fingers. "Steady," he said firmly. "Steady. It
may be only temporary. Keep your head up to the storm. We'll have a
specialist, and you must not get mired till then. Steady, Chief."

"Chief! Chief!" murmured Ingolby. "Dear God, what a chief! I risked
everything, and I've lost everything by my own vanity. Barbazon's--the
horseshoe--among the wolves, just to show I could do things better than
any one else--as if I had the patent for setting the world right. And
now--now--"

The thought of the bridge, of Marchand's devilish design, shot into
his mind, and once more he was shaken. "The bridge! Blind! Mother!" he
called in a voice twisted in an agony which only those can feel to whom
life's purposes are even more than life itself. Then, with a moan, he
became unconscious, and his head rolled over against Rockwell's cheek.
The damp of his brow was as the damp of death as Rockwell's lips touched
it.

"Old boy, old boy!" Rockwell said tenderly, "I wish it had been me
instead. Life means so much to you--and so little to me. I've seen too
much, and you've only just begun to see."

Laying him gently down, Rockwell summoned the nurse and Jim Beadle and
spoke to them in low tones. "He knows now, and it has hit him hard, but
not so hard that he won't stiffen to it. It might have been worse."

He gave instructions as to the c