The doctors were wrapping bandage over bandage, and fixing them firmly at the back of their patient's head.
"Now listen again," said one of them: "This bandage must be kept over your eyes for a week."
"A week—a whole week? Oh, doctor, you might as well say forever."
"I say a week. And if you should ever remove it—"
"Not for an instant? Not raise it a very little?"
"If you ever remove it for an instant, or raise it ever so little, you will assuredly lose your sight forever. Remember that."
"Oh, doctor, it is terrible. Why did you not tell me so before? Oh this is worse than blindness! Think of the temptation, and I have never seen my boy!"
The doctor had fixed the bandage, and his voice was less stern, but no less resolute.
"You must obey me," he said; "I will come again this day week, and then you shall see your child, and your father, and this young lady, and everybody. But mind, if you don't obey me, you will never see anything. You will have one glance of your little boy, and then be blind forever, or perhaps—yes, perhaps die."
Mercy lay quiet for a moment. Then she said, in a low voice: