"There are two hours to get you fit to be seen," she rejoined with
raillery, infected by his cheerfulness in spite of herself. "Madame
Bulteel is very brave. Nothing is too hard for her!"
An instant later she was gone, with her heart telling her to go back to
him, not to leave him, but yet with a longing stronger still driving her
to the open world, to which she could breathe her trouble in great gasps,
as she sped onward through the woods and by the river. To love a blind
man was sheer madness, but in her was a superstitious belief that he
would see again. It prevailed against the doubts and terrors. It made her
resent his own sense of fatality, his own belief that he would be in
darkness all his days.
In the room where he awaited the verdict of the expert, he kept saying to
himself:
"She would have made everything else look cheap--if it could have been."
CHAPTER XXI
THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER
The last rays of the setting sun touched the gorgeous Autumn woods with a
loving, bright glow, and the day stole pensively away into a purple bed
beyond the sight of the eyes. From a lonely spot by the river, Fleda
watched the westering gleam until it vanished, her soul alive to the
melancholy beauty of it all. Not a human being seemed to be within the
restricted circle of her vision.
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