that he could not speak.

She broke the spell. "I am here. Can't you see me?" she asked in a
quizzical, playful tone, her lips trembling a little, but with a smile in
her eyes which she vainly tried to veil.

She had said the one thing which above all others could have lifted the
situation to its real significance. A few weeks ago the eyes now looking
into hers and telling a great story were sealed with night, and the mind
behind was fretted by the thought of a perpetual darkness. All the
tragedy of the past rushed into his mind now, and gave all that was
between them, or was to be between them, its real meaning. A beautiful
woman is dear to man simply as woman, and not as the woman; virtue has
slain its thousands, but physical charm has slain its tens of thousands!
Whatever Ingolby's defects, however, infinitely more than the girl's
beauty, more than the palpitating life in her, than red lips and bright
eye, than warm breast and clasping hand, was something beneath all which
would last, or should last, when the hand was palsied and the eye was
dim.

"I am here. Can't you see me?"

All that he had regained in life in her little upper room rushed upon
him, and with outstretched arms and in a voice choked with feeling, he
said:

"See you! Dear God--To see you and all the world once more! It is being
born again to me. I haven't learned to talk in my new world yet; but I
know three words of the language. I love you. Come--I'll be good to
you."