"'Jane,' he ordered, 'a light--a light.'

"'I have lighted the gas, Mr. Haswell,' she cried.

"A groan followed. He had himself found a match, had struck it, had
even burnt his fingers with it, yet he saw nothing.

"The blow had fallen. At almost the very hour which Prescott, by means
of his weird telepagram, had predicted, old Haswell was stricken.

"'I'm blind,' he gasped. 'Send for Dr. Burnham.'"

"I went to him immediately when the maid roused me, but there was
nothing I could do except prescribe perfect rest for his eyes and
keeping in a dark room in the hope that his sight might be restored as
suddenly and miraculously as it had been taken away.

"The next morning, with his own hand, trembling and scrawling in his
blindness, he wrote the following on a piece of paper:

* * * * *

"MRS. GRACE MARTIN--Information wanted about the present whereabouts
of Mrs. Grace Martin, formerly Grace Haswell of Brooklyn.

STEPHEN HASWELL,

--Pierrepont St., Brooklyn.