eventually
married the man on whose jolly old staircase I painted her. Why didn't
I come a cropper over any of them? Because there were too many, I
suppose. Also, the attraction was skin-deep. I don't mind telling you
quite frankly: the only one whose beauty used to cause me a real pang
was Lady Brand. But when I had painted it and shown it to the world in
its perfection, I was content. I asked no more of any woman than to
paint her, and find her paintable. I could not explain this to the
husbands and mothers and chaperons, but the women themselves understood
it well enough; and as I sit here in my darkness not a memory rises up
to reproach me."

"Good boy," said Deryck Brand, laughing. "You were vastly
misunderstood, but I believe you."

"You see," resumed Garth, "that sort of thing being merely skin-deep, I
went no deeper. The only women I really knew were my mother, who died
when I was nineteen, and Margery Graem, whom I always hugged at meeting
and parting, and always shall hug until I kiss the old face in its
coffin, or she straightens me in mine. Those ties of one's infancy and
boyhood are among the closest and most sacred life can show. Well, so
things were until a certain evening in June several years ago. She--the
One Woman--and I were in the same house party at a lovely old place in
the country. One afternoon we had been talking intimately, but quite
casually and frankly. I had no more thought of wanting to marry her
than of proposing to old Margery. Then--something happened,--I must not
tell you what; it would give too clear a clue to her identity. But it
revealed to me, in a few marvellous moments, the woman in her; the
wife, the mother; the strength, the tenderness; the exquisite
perfection of her true, pure soul. In five minutes there awakened in me
a hunger for her which nothing could still, which nothing ever will
still, until I stand beside her in the Golden City, where they shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; and there shall be no more
darkness, or depending upon sun, moon, or candle, for the glory of God
shall lighten it; and there shall be no more sorrow, neither shall
there be any more pain, for former things shall have passed away."

The blind face shone in the firelight. Garth's retrospection was
bringing him visions of things to come.

The doctor sat quite still and watched the vision fade. Then he said:
"Well?"

"Well," continued the young voice in the shadow, with a sound in i