“There were qualities in the romance, Doctor, which raised it to a plane higher than most similar affairs. Ten years of poverty had brought them no regrets, and this alone seemed to me sufficient to warrant the breach of etiquette; then, the former husband was a rake, or, what is far worse, an ex-rake. Also, the love of this man and woman had grown and deepened and gathered volume until, and this I gathered from what Dalton did not tell me, the love itself contained in him had raised the nature of this man to a sublime height, where it would almost seem that he had undergone an apotheosis; this perfect love which had begun so imperfectly had matured this creature, who was the result of generations of highly bred and highly cultured ancestors, until the man was an Olympian, Doctor, a demi-god, or I am no judge of men.
“Before long I left him, soothed as much as might be, and promising to sleep. When I visited him the following day he was calm, and one read only in the lines of the firm and beautiful mouth which cut the triangular space between the bandages, ‘I wait.’”
Leyden’s voice grew muffled.
“My word! I couldn’t stand it, Doctor, for very long; it was worse than the accident itself. I sneaked off into Burton’s room, and there the surgeon found me an hour later lying on the old man’s bunk, for he was below at the time, and holding a capsized book in front of my face. There was a simplicity about this doctor which appealed to me.
“‘Oh, hell!’ said he, and dropped into Burton’s desk chair and buried his face in his hands, and there he sat until presently the chief came in. From behind my book I could feel the grizzled old fellow looking from one to the other of us, and presently he gave a husky and inquiring grunt.
“‘Blind,’ said the doctor, ... stone blind,’ and with that old Burton kicked shut the door which opened on the boiler-room, and the three of us began to snivel in the shamefaced way characteristic of certain emotional members of the Anglo-Saxon race. I think Burton prayed a little, for he was inclined to be theosophical.
“‘Does he know?’ asked Burton, presently.
“‘No,’ muttered the doctor, ... I ... I put him off....’
“‘You put him off!’ I snapped. ‘Do you mean to say that you have any hope?’
“‘There’s none to have,’ he answered a bit sulkily; ‘the cornea might just as well have been seared with a Paquelin....’