the eyes of those who saw her, still less that she was sometimes almost
beautiful in a shadowy, spiritual way. The blind, of all their
sufferings, often feel most keenly the impossibility of knowing whether
the truth is told them about their own looks; and he who will try and
realize what it is to have been always sightless will understand that
this is not vanity, but rather a sort of diffidence towards which all
people should be very kind. Of all necessities of this world, of all
blessings, of all guides to truth, God made light first. There are many
sharp pains, many terrible sufferings and sorrows in life that come and
wrench body and soul, and pass at last either into alleviation or
recovery, or into the rest of death; but of those that abide a lifetime
and do not take life itself, the worst is hopeless darkness. We call
ignorance 'blindness,' and rage 'blindness,' and we say a man is 'blind'
with grief.

Inez sat opposite her sister, at the other end of the table, listening.
She knew what Dolores was doing, how during long months her sister had
written a letter, from time to time, in little fragments, to give to the
man she loved, to slip into his hand at the first brief meeting or to
drop at his feet in her glove, or even, perhaps, to pass to him by the
blind girl's quick fingers. For Inez helped the lovers always, and Don
John was very gentle with her, talking with her when he could, and even
leading her sometimes when she was in a room she did not know. Dolores
knew that she could only hope to exchange a word with him when he came
back, and that the terrace was bleak and wet now, and the roses
withered, and that her father feared for her, and might do some
desperate thing if he found her lover talking with her where no one
could see or hear. For old Mendoza knew the world and the court, and he
foresaw that sooner or later some royal marriage would be made for Don
John of Austria, and that even if Dolores were married to him, some