ce an entrance.

The first words after the bandages were removed came from Ingolby.

"Well, Jim, you look all right!" he said.

Swaying as she went, Fleda half-blindly moved towards a chair near by
and sank into it. She scarcely heard Jim's reply.

"Looking all right yourself, Chief. You won't see much change in this
here old town."

Ingolby's hand was in Rockwell's. "It's all right, isn't it?" he asked.

"You can see it is," answered Rockwell with a chuckle in his voice, and
then suddenly he put the bandages round Ingolby's eyes again. "That's
enough for today," he said.

A moment later the bandages were secured and Rockwell stood back from
the bed.

"In another week you'll see as well as ever you did," Rockwell said.
"I'm proud of you."

"Well, I hope I'll see a little better than ever I did," remarked
Ingolby meaningly. "I was pretty short-sighted before."

At that instant he heard Fleda's footstep approaching the bed. His
senses had grown very acute since the advent of his blindness. He held
out his hand into space.

"What a nice room this is!" he said as her fingers slid into his. "It's
the nicest room I was ever in. It's too nice for me. In a few days I'll
hand the lease over again to its owner, and go back to the pigsty Jim
keeps in Stormont Street."

"Well, there ain't any pigs in that sty now, Chief; but it's all ready,"
said Jim, indignant and sarcastic.

It was a lucky speech. It broke the spell of emotion which was greatly
straining everybody's endurance.

"That's one in the eye for somebody," remarked Rockwell drily.

"What would you like for lunch?" asked Fleda, letting go Ingolby's hand,
but laying her fingers on his arm for a moment.

What would he like for lunch! Here was a man back from the Shadows, from
broken hopes and shattered career, from the helplessness and eternal
patience of the blind; here he was on the hard, bright highroad again,
with a procession of restored things coming towards him, with life and
love within his grasp; and the woman to whom it mattered most of all,
who was worth it all, and more than all where he was concerned, said to
him in this moment of revelation, "What would you like for lunch?"

With an air as casually friendly as her own, he put another hand on the
fingers lying on his arm, patted them, and said gaily, "Anything I can
see. As a drover once said to me, 'I can clean as fur as I can reach.'"

In just such a temper also they had parted when he w