"Anything consistent with previous engagements. Can't break any promises."
"Have you made any promises about the man upstairs?"
"Not the ghost of a one! But he isn't 'the man upstairs' to me. He's the man in the room at the end of my passage. That's how I came to see him."
"You did see him?"
"Oh yes—talked to him till the nurse stopped it. I found we knew each other. Met him in the Tyrol—at Meran—ten years ago. He was quite a boy then. But he remembered me quite well. It was this morning."
"Did he recognise you, or you him?"
"Why—neither exactly. We found out about Meran by talking. No—poor chap!—he can't recognise anybody, by sight at least. He won't do that yet awhile."
The lady said "Oh?" in a puzzled voice, as though she heard something for the first time; then continued: "Do you know, I have never quite realised that ... that the eyes were so serious. I knew all along that there was something, but ... but I understood it was only weakness."
"They have been keeping it dark—quite reasonably and properly, you know—but there is it! He can't see—simply can't see. His eyes look all right, but they won't work. His sister knows, of course, but he has bound her over to secrecy. He made me promise to say nothing, and I've broken my promise, I suppose. But—somehow—I thought you knew."
"Only that there was something—no idea that he was blind. But I won't betray your confidence."