As for myself, I remained perfectly still, gazing at his face in mingled surprise and apprehension.  For besides its beauty, which was of a marked order, as I have already observed, it had a touching expression which irresistibly aroused both pity and interest in the spectator.  This may have been the result of his affliction, or it may have sprung from some deeper cause; but, whatever its source, this look in his face produced a strong impression upon me and interested me at once in his personality.  Would he enter; or would he pass on?  Her look of silent appeal showed me in which direction her wishes lay, but while I answered her glance by complete silence, I was conscious in some indistinct way that the business I had undertaken would be better furthered by his entrance.

The blind have often been said to possess a sixth sense in place of the one they have lost.  Though I am sure we made no noise, I soon perceived that he was aware of our presence.  Stepping hastily forward he said, in the high and vibrating tone of restrained passion: 

“Zulma, are you there?”

For a moment I thought she did not mean to answer, but knowing doubtless from experience the impossibility of deceiving him, she answered with a cheerful assent, dropping her hand as she did so from before my lips.

He heard the slight rustle which accompanied the movement, and a look I found it hard to comprehend flashed over his features, altering his expression so completely that he seemed another man.

“You have someone with you,” he declared, advancing another step, but with none of the uncertainty which usually accompanies the movements of the blind.  “Some dear friend,” he went on, with an almost sarcastic emphasis and a forced smile that had little of gaiety in it.

The agitated and distressed blush which answered him could have but one interpretation.  He suspected that her hand had been clasped in mine, and she perceived his thought and knew that I perceived it also.

Drawing herself up, she moved towards him, saying in a sweet womanly tone: 

“It is no friend, Constant, not even an acquaintance.  The person whom I now present to you is a representative from some detective agency.  He is here upon a trivial errand which will soon be finished, when I will join you in the office.”

I knew she was but taking a choice between two evils, that she would have saved her husband the knowledge of my calling as well as of my presence in the house, if her self-respect would have allowed it; but neither she nor I anticipated the effect which this introduction of myself in my business capacity would produce upon him.

“A detective,” he repeated, staring with his sightless eyes, as if, in his eagerness to see, he half hoped his lost sense would return.  “He can have no trivial errand here; he has been sent by God Himself to—­”