"Yes, yes, I will behave myself; I will be very good. Only don't shut me up in darkness again until I see my boy. Greta, bring him to me. Listen: I hear his breathing. Go for my darling. The kind doctor won't be angry with you. Tell him that if I see my child it will cure me. I know it will." Greta's eyes were swimming in tears. "Rest quiet, Mercy. Everything may be lost if you disturb yourself now, my dear." The doctors were wrapping bandage over bandage, and fixing them firmly at the back of their patient's head. "Now listen again," said one of them. "This bandage must be kept over your eyes for a week." "A week--a whole week? Oh, doctor, you might as well say forever!" "I say a week. And if you should ever remove it--" "Not for an instant? Not raise it a little?" "If you ever remove it for an instant, or raise it ever so little, you will assuredly lose your sight forever. Remember that." "Oh, doctor, it is terrible! Why did you not tell me so before? Oh, this is worse than blindness! Think of the temptation, and I have never seen my boy!" The doctor had fixed the bandage, and his voice was less stern, but no less resolute. "You must obey me," he said; "I will come again this day week, and then you shall see your child, and your father, and this young lady, and everybody. But, mind, if you don't obey me you will never see anything. You will have one glance of your little boy, and then be blind forever, or perhaps--yes, perhaps die." Mercy lay quiet for a moment. Then she said in a low voice: "Dear doctor, you must forgive me. I am very willful, and I promised to be so good. I will not touch the bandage. No, for the sake of my little boy, I will never, never touch it. You shall come yourself and take it off, and then I shall see him." The doctors went away. Greta remained all night in the cottage. "You are happy now, Mercy?" said Greta. "Oh, yes," said Mercy. "Just think, only a week! And he must be so beautiful by this time." When Greta took the child to her at sunset, there was an ineffable joy in her pale face, and next morning, when Greta awoke, Mercy was singing softly to herself in the sunrise. CHAPTER IV. There was a gathering of miners near the pit-head that morning. It was pay day. The rule was that the miners on the morning shift should pass through the pay-office before going down the shaft at eight o'clock; and that those on the night shift should pass through on their way home a few minutes afterward. When the morning men passed through the office they had found the pay-door shut, and a notice posted over it, saying, "All wages due at eight o'clock to-day will be paid at the same hour to-morrow."