“This is a surprise,” she exclaimed.  “I haven’t seen you for ever so long.”

Her anxious glance swept past him to the big, awkward figure against the window’s light.  Austin was rising with apparent difficulty, and she glided to him.

“Please!  Don’t rise!  How many times have I told you not to exert yourself?”

Suydam noted the gentle, proprietary tone of her voice, and it amazed him.

“I—­am very glad that you came to see me.”  The afflicted man’s voice was jerky and unmusical.  “How are you to-day, Miss?”

“He shouldn’t rise, should he?” Miss Moore appealed to the physician.  “He is very weak and shouldn’t exert himself.”

The doctor wished that his friend might see the girl’s face as he saw it; he suddenly began to doubt his own judgment of women.

“Oh, I’m doing finely,” Austin announced.  “Won’t you be seated?” He waved a comprehensive gesture, and Suydam, marveling at the manner in which the fellow concealed his infirmity, brought a chair for the caller.

“I came alone to-day.  Mother is shopping,” Miss Moore was saying.  “See!  I brought these flowers to cheer up your room.”  She held up a great bunch of sweet peas.  “I love the pink ones, don’t you?”

Austin addressed the doctor.  “Miss Moore has been very kind to me; I’m afraid she feels it her duty—­”

“No!  No!” cried the girl.

“She rarely misses a day, and she always brings flowers.  I’m very fond of bright colors.”

Suydam cursed at the stiff formality in the man’s tone.  How could any woman see past that glacial front and glimpse the big, aching heart beyond?  Austin was harsh and repellent when the least bit self-conscious, and now he was striving deliberately to heighten the effect.

The physician wondered why Marmion Moore had gone even thus far in showing her gratitude, for she was not the self-sacrificing kind.  As for a love match between two such opposite types, Suydam could not conceive of it.  Even if the girl understood the sweet, simple nature of this man, even if she felt her own affections answer to his, Suydam believed he knew the women of her set too well to imagine that she could bring herself to marry a blind man, particularly one of no address.

“We leave for the mountains to-morrow,” Marmion said, “so I came to say good-by, for a time.”

“I—­shall miss your visits,” Austin could not disguise his genuine regret, “but when you return I shall be thoroughly recovered.  Perhaps we can ride again.”

“Never!” declared Miss Moore.  “I shall never ride again.  Think of the suffering I’ve caused you.  I—­I—­am dreadfully sorry.”

To Suydam’s amazement, he saw the speaker’s eyes fill with tears.  A doubt concerning the correctness of his surmises came over him and he rose quickly.  After all, he reflected, she might see and love the real Bob as he did, and if so she might wish to be alone with him in this last hour.  But Austin laughed at his friend’s muttered excuse.