She could only look at him in astonishment.
“But surely you can search your own documents?” she said good-humouredly.
“No, I’m afraid I can’t. Because”—he spoke with the simplicity of a child—“I am blind.”
“Blind?” gasped Mirabelle, and the man laughed gently.
“I am pretty capable for a blind man, am I not? I can walk across a room and avoid all the furniture. The only thing I cannot do is to read—at least, read the ordinary print. I can read Braille: poor Barberton taught me. He was a schoolmaster,” he explained, “at a blind school near Brightlingsea. Not a particularly well-educated man, but a marvellously quick writer of Braille. We have corresponded for years through that medium. He could write a Braille letter almost as quickly as you can with pen and ink.”
Her heart was full of pity for the man: he was so cheery, so confident, and withal so proud of his own accomplishments, that pity turned to admiration. He had the ineffable air of obstinacy which is the possession of so many men similarly stricken, and she began to realize that self-pity, that greatest of all afflictions which attends blindness, had been eliminated from his philosophy.
“I should like to tell you more,” he said, as he held out his hand. “Probably I will dictate a long letter to you to-morrow, or else my lawyer will do so, putting all the facts before you. For the moment, however, I must be sure of my ground. I have no desire to raise in your heart either fear or—hope. Do you know a Mr. Manfred?”
“I don’t know him personally,” she said quickly. “George Manfred?”
He nodded.
“Have you met him?” she asked eagerly. “And Mr. Poiccart, the Frenchman?”