“Edith, darling, where are you?” and his hand sought the ottoman where she had been, but where she was not now.

Noiselessly, as he talked, she had crept away to the lounge in the corner, where she crouched like a frightened deer, her flush creeping with nervous terror, and her eyes fastened upon the man who had repeated her name, asking where she was.

“Here, Richard,” she answered at last, her eyelids involuntarily closing when she saw him rising, and knew he was coming toward her.

She had forgotten her promise to Arthur that she would not answer Richard “No,” should he ask her to be his wife; that, like Nina’s “scratching out,” was null and void, and when he knelt beside her, she said half bitterly,

“It must not be; the singing bird cannot mate with the owl!”

Instantly there broke from the blind man’s lips a cry of agony so pitiful, so reproachful in its tone, that Edith repented her insulting words, and winding her arms around his neck, entreated his forgiveness for having so cruelly mocked him..

“You called yourself so first,” she sobbed, “or I should not have thought of it.  Forgive me.  Richard, I didn’t mean it.  I could not thus pain the noblest, truest friend I ever had.  Forgive your singing bird.  She surely did not mean it,” and Edith pressed her burning cheeks against his own.

What was it she did not mean?  That it could not be, or that he was an owl?  He asked himself this question many times during the moment of silence which intervened; then as he felt her still clinging to him, his love for her rolled back upon him with overwhelming force, and kneeling before her as the slave to his master, he pleaded with her again to say it could be, the great happiness he had dared to hope for.

“Is there any other man whom my darling expects to marry?” he asked, and Edith was glad he put the question in this form, as without prevarication she could promptly answer,

“No, Richard, there is none.”

“Then you may learn to love me,” Richard said.  “I can wait, I can wait; but must it be very long?  The days will be so dreary, and I love you so much that I am lost if you refuse.  Don’t make my darkness darker, Edith.”

He laid his head upon her lap, still kneeling before her, the iron-willed man kneeling to the weak young girl, whose hands were folded together like blocks of lead, and gave him back no answering caress, only the words,

“Richard, I can’t.  It’s too sudden.  I have thought of you always as my elder brother, Be my brother, Richard.  Take me as your sister, won’t you?”

“Oh, I want you for my wife,” and his voice was full of pleading pathos.  “I want you in my bosom, I need you there, darling.  Need some one to comfort me.  I’ve suffered so much, for your sake, too.  Oh, Edith, my early manhood was wasted; I’ve reached the autumn time, and the gloom which wrapped me then in its black folds lies around me still, and will you refuse to throw over my pathway a single ray of sunlight?  No, no, Edith, you won’t, you can’t.  I’ve loved you too much.  I’ve lost too much.  I’m growing old—­and—­oh, Birdie, Birdie, I’m blind!  I’m blind!”