"And," half-declared, half-questioned Dick, "if you aren't President, you are going to be some other kind of a very great man?
"Aren't you?" the boy persisted, when Hampstead was silent.
"Tell you to-morrow," laughed John. "Good night, ghosts!" and with a swift assault of his lips upon the cheeks of either, he gently impelled them toward the door.
"Good night, your Excellency!" giggled Tayna.
"Good night, my counselors," responded Hampstead, reaching for his book.
An hour later Hampstead was still reading. Another hour later he was still reading. But something like a quarter of an hour beyond that, when it might have been, say, near half-past eleven, he was not reading. He was turning his head strangely from side to side and digging a knuckle into his eyes. A surprising thing had happened. He could no longer see the lines upon the page—nor the page itself—nor the book—nor anything!
His first impression was that the gas had gone out; but this swiftly gave way to the conviction that he had gone blind—stone blind!—and so suddenly that it happened right between the beheading of one of the queens of Henry the Eighth and the marrying of another. He was now tardily conscious that for some time his eyes had been giving him pain, that he had rubbed them periodically to clear away white opacities that appeared upon the page; but now there was no pain; they were suffused with moisture, and the room was dark.
After an interval he could make out the gaslight glowing feebly like the tiny glare of a candle visible in some distant pit of darkness, but he could discern no shapes about the room. Not one!
A horrible fear stole into his breast and chilled it. All of him had suddenly come to naught, and just as he was getting started. He turned futile, streaming orbs up to where his new-made motto should loom upon the wall. It was there, of course, mocking at him now; but he could not see it. He could not see the wall even. For fully five minutes he sat in darkness, his hands clasped above his bowed head. Then he arose and groped his way along the wall to the door and opened it, and stood facing out into the grotesque dark of the studio. He thought of trying to grope his way across it—of calling out—but decided to wait a few minutes.
He felt stricken, broken, overwhelmed. His life, his career, himself were ruined. He required time to get used to the sensation, time to adjust his mind to the extent of the calamity and to gather some elements of fortitude wherewith to face the world. Not even Rose must see him broken and shattered as he felt right now.