But the stranger's ear, tutored to every inflection of voice, told him at
once of the pain she suffered. He drew from her by degrees the
confession of the injury she had sustained; but the generous girl did not
tell him it had been incurred solely in his protection. He now insisted
on reversing their duties, and accompanying _her_ to her home; and
Lucille, almost fainting with pain, and hardly able to move, was forced
to consent. But a few steps down the next turning stood the humble
mansion of her father. They reached it; and Lucille scarcely crossed the
threshold, before she sank down, and for some minutes was insensible to
pain. It was left to the stranger to explain, and to beseech them
immediately to send for a surgeon, "the most skilful, the most practised
in the town," said he. "See, I am rich, and this is the least I can do
to atone to your generous daughter, for not forsaking even a stranger in
peril."

He held out his purse as he spoke, but the father refused the offer; and
it saved the blind man some shame, that he could not see the blush of
honest resentment with which so poor a species of renumeration was put
aside.

The young man stayed till the surgeon arrived, till the arm was set; nor
did he depart until he had obtained a promise from the mother that he
should learn the next morning how the sufferer had passed the night.

The next morning, indeed, he had intended to quit a town that offers but
little temptation to the traveller; but he tarried day after day, until
Lucille herself accompanied her mother, to assure him of her recovery.

You know, at least I do, dearest Gertrude, that there is such a thing as