quickly. There's something amiss--I'm sure there is. Now, what is it?
Come, no secrets."

The girl, quickly snatching away her hand, answered with a forced laugh,
"How absurd you really are, dear old dad! You're always fancying
something or other."

"Because my senses of hearing and feeling are sharper and more developed
than those of other folk perhaps," replied the grey-bearded old
gentleman, as he turned his sharp-cut, grey, but expressionless
countenance to the tall, sweet-faced girl standing beside his chair.

No second glance was needed to realise the pitiful truth. The man seated
there in his fine library, with the summer sunset slanting across the
red carpet from the open French windows, was blind.

Since his daughter Gabrielle had been a pretty, prattling child of nine,
nursing her dolly, he had never looked upon her fair face. But he was
ever as devoted to her as she to him.

Surely his was a sad and lonely life. Within the last fifteen years or
so great wealth had come to him; but, alas! he was unable to enjoy it.
Until eleven years ago he had been a prominent figure in politics and in
society in London. He had sat in the House for one of the divisions of
Hampshire, was a member of the Carlton, and one year he found his name
among the Birthday Honours with a K.C.M.G. For him everybody predicted a
brilliant future. The Press gave prominence to his speeches, and to his
house in Park Street came Cabinet Ministers and most of the well-known
men of his party. Indeed, it was an open secret in a certain circle that
he had been promised a seat in the Cabinet in the near future.