"You see, I'm going to begin right now," said he. She admired his vitality, his certainty of accomplishment. The Hall was still lit by lamps and candles; and although, on her return from a visit, she had often deplored the absence of electric light, she had shrunk from the strain and worry of an innovation. And here was Roger turning the whole house inside out more cheerfully than she would turn out a drawer. "You'll help me, won't you?" he asked. "I want a home with a touch of the woman in it; I've lived so long in masculine stiffness." "You know that I should love to do anything I could, Roger," she replied happily. He remarked again that it was good to be back. No more letters--they were unsatisfactory, after all. He hoped she had not resented his business man's habit of typewriting. This was in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-two, and, save for Roger's letters, typewritten documents came as seldom as judgment summonses to Duns Hall. "We go ahead in America," said he. "'The old order changeth, yielding place to new.' I accept it," she said with a smile. "What I've longed for in Dunsfield," he said, "is the old order that doesn't change. I don't believe anything has changed." She plucked up her courage. Now she would challenge him--get it over at once. She would watch his lips as he answered. "I'm afraid I must have changed, Roger." "In what way?" "I am no longer twenty." "Your voice is just the same." Shocked, she put up her delicate hands. "Don't--it hurts!" "What?" "You needn't have put it that way--you might have told a polite lie." He rose, turned aside, holding the back of the wicker chair. "I've got something to tell you," he said abruptly. "You would have to find out soon, so you may as well know now. But don't be alarmed or concerned. I can't see your face." "What do you mean?" "I've been stone blind for fifteen years." "Blind?" She sat for some moments paralysed. It was inconceivable. This man was so strong, so alive, so masterful, with the bright face and keen, humorous eyes--and blind! A trivial undercurrent of thought ran subconsciously beneath her horror. She had wondered why he had insisted on sounds and scents, why he had kept his stick in his hand, why he had touched things--tables, window jambs, chairs--now she knew. Roger went on talking, and she heard him in a dream. He had not informed her when he was stricken, because he had wished to spare her unnecessary anxiety. Also, he was proud, perhaps hard, and resented sympathy. He had made up his mind to win through in spite of his affliction. For some years it had been the absorbing passion of his life. He had won through like many another, and, as the irreparable detachment of the retina had not disfigured his eyes, it was his joy to go through the world like a seeing man, hiding his blindness from the casual observer. By dictated letter he could never have made her understand how trifling a matter it was.