"What more?" asked Sidney, curtly.

His cousin had annoyed him; stirred up the acrimony of his nature, and destroyed all that placidity of demeanour which he had fostered lately.

He felt that he rather hated Maurice Hinchford again; that his cousin was ever a dark blot in the landscape, with his robust health, loud voice, and self-sufficiency. This man paraded his own knowledge of human nature too obtrusively, and spoke as if his listener was a child; he professed to have discerned in Harriet Wesden an affection for the old lover to whom she had been engaged--as if he, Sidney Hinchford, had been blind all his life, or was morally blind then! Sidney would be glad to hear the last of him--to be left to himself once more; his cousin was an intrusion--he desired no further speech with him, and he implied as much by his last impatient query.

"It's something entirely new, Sidney, and therefore you need not fear any old topics being intruded on your notice. I have brought a friend to see you."

"Take him away again."

"No, I'd rather not, thank you," was the aggravating response; "I made my mind up to bring him, and he's waiting in the shop."

"Maurice--you insult me!"

"Pardon me, cousin, but the end must justify the means. He has come from Paris to see you; he would have been here before, had not illness prevented him."

"Who is this man?"

"The cleverest man in Europe, I'm told--an eccentric being, with a wonderful mine of cleverness beneath his eccentricity. A man who has made the defects of vision his one study, and has become great in consequence. Sidney, you must see him!"

"You bring him here at your own expense, to inspect a hopeless case; you will shame me by being beholden to you--to you, of all men in the world!"

"I thought we had got over the past--forgiven it?"

"Yes, but----"

"But it can't be forgiven, Sid Hinchford, if you hinder me making an effort to atone to you in my way."

"With your purse?" was the cold reply.

"No; with my respect for you--my regret for a friend whom I have lost."

"A strange friend!"

"And I have faith in this man. I remember a case similar to yours, which----"

"Stop! in the name of mercy, Maurice--this cannot be borne at least. I am resigned to despair, but not to such a hope as yours. Let him come in, and laugh at you for your folly in bringing him hither."

"Bario!" called Maurice.

The lank man came into the parlour, set his hat on a chair, and looked at Sidney very intently. His vacuity of expression vanished, and a keen intelligence took its place.

"Good morning, sir," he said, in fair English; "you are the blind gentleman Mr. Hinchford has requested me to see?"

"The same, sir."

"You are sure you're blind?"

"Maurice, this man is a----"

"Yes, very clever. You have heard of Dr. Bario--he has been resident in Paris some years now."

"Ah!" said Sidney, listlessly.

"There is a blindness that be not blindness, sir--that's my theory,"

said the Italian; "a something that comes suddenly like a blight--the off-spring of much excitement, very often."

"Mine had been growing upon me for years--I was prepared for it by a man as skilful as yourself."

"May I put to you his name."

Sidney told him, and Dr. Bario gave his shoulders that odious French shrug which implies so much. Such is the jealousy of all professions--extending even to the disciples of the healing art. A never thinks much of B, if he be jumping at the same prize on the bay-tree--Dr. Bario had his weakness.

"He might have mistaken the disease, and into this have half frightened you. People, odd mistakes do make at times--I myself have not been infallible."

"Possibly not," said Sidney, drily.

"In my youth of course," said the vain man, "when I listened a leetle too much to the opinions of others--it was once my way."

Sidney thought the speaker had altered considerably since then, but kept his idea to himself. He was endeavouring to be cool, and uninfluenced by this man's remarks; but they had set his heart beating, and his temples painfully throbbing. He was a fool to feel unnerved at this; it was a false step of his cousin's, and had given him much pain--but Maurice had meant well, and he forgave him even then.

"Do you mind turning just one piece more to the light?" asked the doctor.

Sidney turned like an automaton. Maurice drew up the back parlour blind; the doctor bent over his patient, and there was a long silence--an anxious pause in the action of three lives, for the doctor's interest was as acute as the cousin's.

"Well?" Maurice e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed at last,

"There's a chance, I think."

"A chance of sight!" cried Sidney; "do you mean that?--is it possible that you can give me hope of that--now?"

"I don't give hope, sir," said Dr. Bario; "it's a chance, that's all--everything. It's one nice case for _me_--not you, young man."

"What do you mean?"

"There's danger in it--it's light, death, or madness! I do not you advise to risk this--but there's one chance if you do!"

"_I will chance it!_"

He was not content with the present, then; it had been a false placidity--he would risk his life for light; life without it, even with Mattie, did not seem for an instant worth considering!

"Very good. To-morrow I will you send for--you will have to place yourself entire under my direction for more weeks than one, before the final operation be attempted."

"I agree to everything--may I accompany you now?"

"To-morrow," was the answer again.

"Oh! it will never come. Maurice," he said, offering his hand, "however this ends, I am indebted to you."

"Yes--but--but if it end badly?"