"Yes. Good-bye, for the present."
She gave his hand the shake that was the signal of parting, and she was glad to go, glad to be on the move in the restlessness of the last few days which seemed to urge only flight. Feeling his hand close tightly she trembled under its grasp, but could not resist as he drew her nearer. His fingers groped about till they rested on her hair. Now he traced her features with the same feathery touch of the blind as he had Henriette's, down the smooth, high brow, past the long eyelashes and over the lump of nose, to the lips, which she pressed tight to keep them from quivering.
"I wanted to see if it were really you, Helen," he wrote. "Forgive me such bad manners!"
"Yes, it is I," she answered aloud, as she released his hand; and though she came to her feet convulsively she appeared quite steady as she said to Henriette:
"Any day when the bandages are off he may see so well that he can tell one person from another."
There was a brittle silence, with Henriette motionless and looking past her sister at a fixed point.
"It's done! It has all come out right," continued Helen, her fingers driven into her palms and a triumphant sort of stoicism in her tone. Still Henriette looked past her and said nothing.
"I——" There she stopped herself. "I must be going," she added, the words coming in a burst as she went toward the one thing distinct to her eyes, the stream of light from the open door, with the precipitancy of one who has been giddily crossing a narrow bridge and hastens the last steps as loss of equilibrium threatens.
"Any day he may see so well that he can tell one person from another!" Henriette repeated. "Well," with a shrug after a pause. Then she smiled as she would into her mirror as she wrote on Phil's arm:
"Shall we walk over to Lady Truckleford's for tea?"