"Madam, I crave your pardon for not having noticed it," he said in an unsteady voice. "And I admire the fortitude wherewith you bear so grievous a burden." "Just because I can't see is no reason for my drowning the world in my tears. We must make the best of things. And there are compensations, too," she added lightly, allowing her hand to be placed on his arm and led away. "I refer to an adventure with a young gentleman which, were I not blind, my Aunt Wotherspoon would esteem mightily unbecoming." "Alas, madam," said he with a sigh, "there you are wrong. I am not young. I am thirty-three." He thought it was a great age. Mistress Barbara turned up her face saucily and laughed. Evidently, she did not share his opinion. Jeremy bent a wistful gaze into the beautiful, sightless eyes, and then saw what had hitherto escaped his notice: a thin; grey film over the pupils. "How did you know," he asked, "that I was a man, when I came up to you?" "First by your aged, tottering footsteps, sir," she said with a pretty air of mockery, "which were not those of a young girl. And then you were standing 'twixt me and the sun, and one of my poor eyes can still distinguish light from shadow." "How long have you suffered from this great affliction?" he asked. "I have been going blind for two years. It is now two months since I have lost sight altogether. But please don't talk of it," she added hastily. "If you pity me I shall cry, which I hate, for I want to laugh as much as I can. I can also walk faster, sir, if it would not tire your aged limbs." Jeremy started guiltily. She had divined his evil purpose. But who will blame him for not wishing to relinquish oversoon the delicious pressure of her little hand on his arm and to give over this blind flower of womanhood into another's charge? He replied disingenuously, without quickening his pace: "'Tis for your sake, madam, I am walking slowly. The afternoon is warm." "I am vastly sensible of your gallantry, sir," she retorted. "But I fear you must have practised it much on others to have arrived at this perfection." "By heavens, madam," he cried, cut to the heart by her innocent raillery, "'tis not so. Could you but see me you would know it was not. I am a recluse, a student, a poor creature set apart from the ways of men. You are the first woman that has walked arm-in-arm with me in all my life--except in dreams. And now my dream has come true." His voice vibrated, and when she answered hers was responsive. "You, too, have your burden?" "Could you but know how your touch lightens it!" said he. She blushed to the brown hair that was visible beneath the mob-cap. "Are we very far now from my Aunt Wotherspoon's?" she asked. Whereupon Jeremy, abashed, took refuge in the commonplace.