“What do you mean?”

“I’m going away.”

“When?  Where?”

“When I can no longer see Marmion Moore and before my affliction becomes known to her.  Where—­you can guess.”

“Oh, that’s cowardly, Bob!  You’re not that sort.  You mustn’t!  It’s unbelievable,” his friend cried, in a panic.

Austin smiled bitterly.  “We have discussed that too often, and—­I’m not sure that what I intend doing is cowardly.  I can’t go now, for the thing is too fresh in her memory, she might learn the truth and hold herself to blame; but when she has lost the first shock of it I shall walk out quietly and she won’t even suspect.  Other interests will come into her life; I’ll be only a memory.  Then—­” After a pause he went on, “I couldn’t bear to see her drop away with the rest.”

“Don’t give up yet,” urged the physician.  “She is leaving for the summer, and while she is gone we’ll try that Berlin chap.  He’ll be here in August.”

“And he will fail, as the others did.  He will lecture some clinic about me, that’s all.  Marmion will hear that my eyes have given out from overwork, or something like that.  Then I’ll go abroad, and—­I won’t come back.”  Austin, divining the rebellion in his friend’s heart, said, quickly:  “You’re the only one who could enlighten her, Doc, but you won’t do it.  You owe me too much.”

“I—­I suppose I do,” acknowledged Suydam, slowly.  “I owe you more than I can ever repay—­”

“Wait—­” The sick man raised his hand, while a sudden light blazed up in his face.  “She’s coming!”

To the doctor’s trained ear the noises of the street rose in a confused murmur, but Austin spoke in an awed, breathless tone, almost as if he were clairvoyant.

“I can hear the horses.  She’s coming to—­see me.”

“I’ll go,” exclaimed the visitor, quickly, but the other shook his head.

“I’d rather have you stay.”

Austin was poised in an attitude of the intensest alertness, his angular, awkward body was drawn to its full height, his lean face was lighted by some hidden fire that lent it almost beauty.

“She’s getting out of the carriage,” he cried, in a nervous voice; then he felt his way to his accustomed arm-chair.  Suydam was about to go to the bay-window when he paused, regarding his friend curiously.

“What are you doing?”

The blind man had begun to beat time with his hand, counting under his breath:  “One!  Two!  Three!—­”

“She’ll knock when I reach twenty-five.  ’Sh! ’sh!” He continued his pantomime, and Suydam realized that from repeated practice Austin had gauged to a nicety the seconds Marmion Moore required to mount the stairs.  This was his means of holding himself in check.  True to prediction, at “Twenty-five” a gentle knock sounded, and Suydam opened the door.

“Come in, Marmion.”

The girl paused for the briefest instant on the threshold, and the doctor noted her fleeting disappointment at seeing him; then she took his hand.