r. There is
nothing doing on the moors now. They were potting bunnies."

"Was he shooting?" asked the girl.

"No," replied the owner of the letter, "and that seems such hard luck.
He had given up shooting altogether a year or two ago. He never really
enjoyed it, because he so loved the beauty of life and hated death in
every form. He has a lovely place in the North, and was up there
painting. He happened to pass within sight of some fellows
rabbit-shooting, and saw what he considered cruelty to a wounded
rabbit. He vaulted over a gate to expostulate and to save the little
creature from further suffering. Then it happened. One of the lads,
apparently startled, let off his gun. The charge struck a tree a few
yards off, and the shot glanced. It did not strike him full. The face
is only slightly peppered and the brain quite uninjured. But shots
pierced the retina of each eye, and the sight is hopelessly gone."

"Awful hard luck," said the young man.

"I never can understand a chap not bein' keen on shootin'," said the
youth who had not yet spoken.

"Ah, but you would if you had known him," said the soldier. "He was so
full of life and vivid vitality. One could not imagine him either dying
or dealing death. And his love of the beautiful was almost a form of
religious worship. I can't explain it; but he had a way of making you
see beauty in things you had hardly noticed before. And now, poor chap,
he can't see them himself."

"Has he a mother?" asked the older woman.

"No, he has no one. He is absolutely alone. Scores of friends of
course; he was a most popular man about town, and could stay in almost
any house in the kingdom if he chose to send a post-card to say he was
coming. But no relations, I believe, and never would marry. Poor chap!
He will wish he had been less fastidious, now. He might have had the
pick of all the nicest girls, most seasons. But not he! Just charming
friendships, and wedded to his art. And now, as Lady Ingleby, says, he
lies in the dark, helpless and alone."

"Oh, do talk of something else!" cried the girl, pushing back her chair
and rising. "I want to forget it. It's too horribly sad. Fancy what it
must be to wake up and not know whether it is day or night, and to have
to lie in the dark and wonder. Oh, do come out and talk of something
cheerful."

They all rose, and the young man slipped his hand through the girl's
arm, glad of the excuse her agitation provided.

"Forget it, dear," he