ht say something or do something which would
make you feel that I believed you never had been married. I have told
you that already."

"Yes! Then surely you will not go away. Because you have brought up a
problem between you and me---- Aren't we big enough to fight that out
between us? Ought we not? Give me my eyes! Give me my rights!

"Why, listen," she went on more gently, less argumentatively, "just the
other day, when we were talking over this question about my eyes, I
called out to you when you went away, and you did not hear me. I said
No; I would not take my eyes from you and pay the price. I said it
would be sweeter to be blind and remain deceived. But that's gone by.
I've been thinking since then. Now I want it all--all! I want all the
fight of it, all the risk of it. Then, after I've taken my chance and
made my fight, I want all the joy of it or all the sorrow of it at the
end! I want life! Don't you? I've always had the feeling that you
were a strong man. I don't want anything I haven't earned. I'll never
give what hasn't been earned. I won't ever pray for what isn't mine."

"Now I'm ready," she repeated simply. "I can't talk any more, and you
mustn't. Good-by."

She felt her hand caught tight in both of his, but he could not speak
to his hand clasp. "At two!" was all he managed to say.

And so, in this far-off spot in the wilderness, the science of to-day,
not long after two by the clock, had done what it might to remedy
nature's unkindness, and to make Mary Gage as other women. When the
sun had dropped back of its shielding mountain wall, Mary Gage lay
still asleep, her eyes bandaged, in her darkened room. Whether at
length she would awaken to darkness or to light, none could tell.
Allen Barnes only knew that, tried as never he had been in all his life
before, he had done his surgeon's work unfalteringly.

"Doc," said Sim Gage tremblingly, when they met upon the gravel street
in the straggling little camp, each white-faced from fatigue, "tell me
how long before we'll know."

"Three or four days at least. We'll have to wait."

"You're sure she'll see?"

"I hope so. I think so."

"What'll she see first?"

"Light."

"Who'll she see first, Doc--Annie, you reckon?"

"If she asks for you, let her see you first," said Doctor Barnes.
"That's your right."

"No," said Sim Gage, "no, I don't think so. I think she'd ought to see
you first, because you're the doctor. A docto