“It’s been coming on for weeks,” Doris continued.  “And I haven’t been able to persuade myself it was real.  I have always been able to distinguish dark from daylight.  But I never knew whether that was pure instinct or because some faint bit of sight was left me.  I have looked and looked at things lately, wondering if imagination could play such tricks.  I couldn’t believe I was seeing even a little, because I’ve always been able to see things in my mind, sometimes clearly, sometimes in a fog—­as I see now—­so I couldn’t tell whether the things I have seen lately were realities or mental images.  I have wanted so to see, and it didn’t seem possible.”

Asking about the stump had been a test, she told Hollister.  She did not know till then whether she saw or only thought she saw.  And she continued to make these tests happily, exulting like a child when it first walks alone.  She made them leave her and she followed them among a clump of alders, avoiding the trunks when she came within a few feet, instead of by touch.  She had Hollister lead her a short distance away from Myra and the baby.  She groped her way back, peering at the ground, until at close range she saw the broad blue and white stripes of Myra’s dress.

“I wonder if I shall continue to see more and more?” she sighed at last, “or if I shall go on peering and groping in this uncertain, fantastic way.  I wish I knew.”

“I know one thing,” Myra put in quickly.  “And that is you won’t do your eyes any good by trying so hard to see.  You mustn’t get excited about this and overdo it.  If it’s a natural recovery, you won’t help it any by trying so hard to see.”

“Do I seem excited?” Doris smiled.  “Perhaps I am.  If you had been shut up for three years in a room without windows, I fancy you’d be excited at even the barest chance of finding yourself free to walk in the sun.  My God, no one with sight knows the despair that the blind sometimes feel.  And the promise of seeing—­you can’t possibly imagine what a glorious thing it is.  Every one has always been good to me.  I’ve been lucky in so many ways.  But there have been times—­you know, don’t you, Bob?—­when it has been simply hell, when I struggled in a black abyss, afraid to die and yet full of bitter protest against the futility of living.”

The tears stood in her eyes and she reached for Hollister’s hand, and squeezed it tightly between her own.

“What a lot of good times we shall have when I get so that I can see just a little better,” she said affectionately.  “Your blind woman may not prove such a bad bargain, after all, Bob.”

“Have I ever thought that?” he demanded.

“Oh, no,” she said smiling, “but I know.  Give me the baby, Myra.”

She cuddled young Robert in her arms.

“Little, fat, soft thing,” she murmured.  “By and by his mother will be able to see the color of his dear eyes.  Bless its little heart—­him and his daddy are the bestest things in this old world—­this old world that was black so long.”