His heart is thumping, and there is a tightness in his throat, that’s all. She had not actually said that he was blind. It wasn’t he. All the same she hadn’t actually said--but he was blind. Blind. Would it always be black? No, it couldn’t. Poor Mamma, she must be upset about it all. What could be done? How dreadful if she started a scene while he was lying there in bed, helpless. But of course, he wasn’t blind. Besides, she hadn’t actually said. What had she said? But then she hadn’t actually said he wasn’t. What was it? He felt hot in bed, lost. He put out a hand, met hers, and drew it away quickly. He must say something. What? (Blind? Yes, blind.) But ... “We must be practical, John darling, we must run this together.”--Darling? She never used that. What was she saying? “... bicycles for two, tandems they’re called, aren’t they? Work together, let me do half the work like on a tandem bicycle. Your father and I went on a trip on one for our honeymoon, years ago now, when bicycles were the latest thing. I wish he was here now, he was a wonderful man, and he would have helped, and--and he would have known what to do.” “What was he like?” (So he was blind, how funny.) “Dear boy, he was the finest man to hounds in three counties, and the most lovely shot. I remember him killing fifty birds in sixty cartridges with driven grouse at your grandfather’s up in Scotland. A beautiful shot. He would have helped.” “It’s all right, I guessed it all along, you see. I knew it really when the man was looking at me in what he said was darkness. There was something in his manner. Christ! my eyes hurt, though.” “Dear boy, don’t swear like that. No, it can’t be your eyes that hurt; if they did it would be a very good thing. It’s your face that--that is cut up rather. Not that all hope is gone, of course, there is still a chance, there always is, the specialist said so. Miracles have happened before now. But I do hate your swearing like this.” “I’m sorry.” Why had she died, who could have helped him so much now? All these years he had thought so little about her, and now she was back, and she ought to be sitting by the bed, and she would be helping so much, and there would be nothing to hide, and it would be so much simpler if Mummy were here. Her hands would drive away the pain. It would be so different. “But I will read to you, all your nice books. And then you will go on writing just the same; you could dictate to me. I shall always be there to help, we’ll see it out together.” Heaven forbid. She would never be able to read Dostoievsky, would never be able to understand. Besides, poor dear, it would bore her so except for the first few weeks when she would feel a martyr, and that was never a feeling to encourage. And how fine it would be to renounce her help in seeing it through, not as if it ever had an end, but how unselfish. Why was there no one else? “Thank you, darling.”