“I regret that I am not able to answer your question.”
“You are bound to secrecy regarding her?”
“I may as well admit the truth—I am.”
“It’s extraordinary,” I ejaculated. “Very extraordinary!”
“Not so extraordinary as the recovery of your vision,” he observed. “Remain perfectly quiet, and don’t take upon yourself any mental problems. A great deal now depends upon your own calmness.”
The fact that my sight was gradually returning to me seemed too astonishing to believe. This man Slade, whoever he was, had performed a feat in surgery which seemed to me miraculous.
Again and again I thanked him, but when he had gone and I told Parker she only gave vent to a grunt of incredulity. Yet had I not actually seen the silhouette of Slade, and the streaks of sunlight beyond? Had I not already had ocular proof that a cure was being effected?
What would Dick, dear old Dick, say on his return when he found me cured? I laughed as I pictured to myself his amazement at finding me at the railway-station on his arrival—looking for him.
Through a whole month Slade came regularly each day at noon, and surely, by slow degrees, my vision became strengthened, until at length I found that, even though I wore smoke-darkened glasses, I could see almost as well as I had done in the days of my youth. The glasses destroyed all colour, it was true, yet I could now go forth into the busy Strand, mingle with the bustling crowds, and revel in their life and movement. Indeed, in those first days of the recovery of my vision I went about London in taxis and omnibuses, hither and thither, with all the enthusiasm of a country cousin or a child on his first visit to the Metropolis. All was novel and interesting on my return to a knowledge of life.
Slade, I found, was a gentlemanly fellow with the air of a clever physician, but all my efforts to discover his abode proved unavailing, and, moreover, just as the cure was complete he one day failed to call as usual. Without word he relinquished me just as suddenly as he had come; but he had restored to me that precious sense which is one of God’s chief gifts.