"Hugh!... Hugh!" she cried. "My husband!" The paleness was stricken suddenly from Harry's face. An odd, dazed color--a flush of mortification, of self-reproach, flooded it from chin to brow. Despite himself, he had felt his lips molding to an answering kiss beneath her own. He drew a gasping breath, his hand nervously caught the bandage, replaced it over the eyes, and tied it tightly, putting down her protesting hands. "Oh, Hugh," she pleaded, "not for a moment--not when I am so happy! Your face is what I dreamed it must be! Why did you make me wait so long? And I can see, Hugh! I can really see! Let it stay off, just for one little moment more!" He held her hands by force. "Jessica--wait!" he said in a broken whisper. "You must not take it off again--not now!" An incredible confusion enveloped him--his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. Not only had the painful _contretemps_ nonplussed and dismayed him; not only had it heightened and horrified the realization of what she must presently be told. It had laid a careless hand upon his own secret, touching it with an almost vulgar mockery. It had overthrown in an instant the barricades he had been piling. The pressure of those lips on his had sent coursing to the furthest recesses of his nature a great wave which dikes nor locks might ever again forbid. Her look, leaping to his face, had not noted the ministerial dress, nor in the ecstasy of the moment did she catch the agitation in his voice; or if she did, she attributed it to a feeling like her own. She was laughing happily, while he stood, trembling slightly, holding himself with an effort. "What a dear goose you are!" she said. "The light didn't hurt them--indeed, indeed! Only to think, Hugh! Your wife will have her sight! Do go and tell your father! He will be waiting to know!" Harry made some incoherent reply. He was desperately anxious to get away--his thought was a snarl of tatters, threaded by one lucid purpose: to spare her coming self-abasement this sardonic humiliation. He did not think of a time in the future, when her error must naturally disclose itself. The tangle spelled _Now_. Not to tell her--not to let her know! He almost ran from the room and down the stair. CHAPTER VIII "AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" At the foot of the landing he paused, drawing a deep breath as if to lift a weight of air. He needed to get his bearings--to win back a measure of calmness. As he stood there, Hugh came from the library. His head was down and he went furtively and slinkingly, as though dreading even a casual regard. He snatched his hat from the rack, passed out of the house, and was swallowed up in the dusk. David Stires had followed his son into the hall. He answered the gloomy question in Harry's eyes: "He is gone," he said, "and I hope to Heaven I may never see his face again!" Then, slowly and feebly, he ascended the stair.