“No,” he said. “You are mistaken. It is with regard to the terrible affliction from which I see you are suffering that I have been sent.”
“Are you a medical man?” I inquired, with some astonishment.
“I am an oculist,” was his reply.
“And your name?”
“Slade—James Slade.”
“And you have been sent here by whom?”
“By a lady whose real name I do not know.”
“But you will kindly explain, before we go further, the circumstance in which she sought your aid on my behalf,” I said firmly.
“You are mutual friends,” he answered, somewhat vaguely. “It is no unusual thing for a patient to seek my aid on behalf of a friend. She sent me here to see you, and to examine your eyes, if you will kindly permit me.”
The man’s bearing irritated me, and I was inclined to resent this enforced subjection to an examination by one of whose reputation I knew absolutely nothing. Some of the greatest oculists in the world had looked into my sightless eyes and pronounced my case utterly hopeless. Therefore I had no desire to be tinkered with by this man, who, for aught I knew, might be a quack whose sole desire was to run up a long bill.