for dinner. Don't shy and stand on your hind-legs; it's not about
Agatha Sprowl; it's about me, and I'm in trouble."

The appeal flattered and touched Coursay, who had never expected that
he, a weak and spineless back-slider, could possibly be of aid or
comfort to his self-sufficient and celebrated cousin, Dr. Lansing.

They entered Lansing's rooms; Coursay helped himself to some cognac, and
smoked, waiting for Lansing to emerge from his dressing-room.

Presently, bathed, shaved, and in his shirt-sleeves, Lansing came in,
tying his tie, a cigarette unlighted between his teeth.

"Jack," he said, "give me advice, not as a self-centred, cautious, and
orderly citizen of Manhattan, but as a young man whose heart leads his
head every time! I want that sort of advice; and I can't give it to
myself."

"Do you mean it?" demanded Coursay, incredulously.

"By Heaven, I do!" returned Lansing, biting his words short, as the snap
of a whip.

He turned his back to the mirror, lighted his cigarette, took one puff,
threw it into the grate. Then he told Coursay what had occurred between
him and the young girl under the elm, reciting the facts minutely and
exactly as they occurred.

"I have the box in my trunk yonder," he went on; "the poor little thing
managed to slip out while Munn was in the barn; I was waiting for her in
the road."

After a moment Coursay asked if the girl was stone blind.

"No," said Lansing; "she can distinguish light from darkness; she can
even make out form--in the dark; but a strong light completely blinds
her."

"Can you help her?" asked Coursay, with quick pity.

Lansing did not answer the question, but went on: "It's been coming
on--this blindness--since her fifth year; she could always see to read
better in dark corners than in a full light. For the last two years she
has not been able to see; and she's only twenty, Jack--only twenty."

"Can't you help her?" repeated Coursay, a painful catch in his throat.

"I haven't examined her," said Lansing, curtly.

"But--but you are an expert in that sort of thing," protested his
cousin; "isn't this in your line?"

"Yes; I sat and talked to her half an hour and did not know she was
blind. She has a pair of magnificent deep-blue eyes; nobody, talking to
her, could suspect such a thing. Still--her eyes were shaded by her
hat."

"What kind of blindness is it?" asked Coursay, in a shocked voice.

"I think I know," said Lansing. "I think there can be l