“Yes?” he said, a little apprehensively. “I wish sometimes—you would not talk like that.” “Like what?” “I know it’s pretty—it’s your imagination. I love it, but _now_—” He felt cold. “_Now?_” he said, faintly. She sat quite still. “You mean—you think—I should be better, better perhaps—” He was realising things very swiftly. He felt anger perhaps, anger at the dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding—a sympathy near akin to pity. “_Dear_,” he said, and he could see by her whiteness how tensely her spirit pressed against the things she could not say. He put his arms about her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time in silence. “If I were to consent to this?” he said at last, in a voice that was very gentle. She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly. “Oh, if you would,” she sobbed, “if only you would!” For a week before the operation that was to raise him from his servitude and inferiority to the level of a blind citizen Nunez knew nothing of sleep, and all through the warm, sunlit hours, while the others slumbered happily, he sat brooding or wandered aimlessly, trying to bring his mind to bear on his dilemma. He had given his answer, he had given his consent, and still he was not sure. And at last work-time was over, the sun rose in splendour over the golden crests, and his last day of vision began for him. He had a few minutes with Medina-sarote before she went apart to sleep. “To-morrow,” he said, “I shall see no more.” “Dear heart!” she answered, and pressed his hands with all her strength. “They will hurt you but little,” she said; “and you are going through this pain, you are going through it, dear lover, for _me_ . . . . Dear, if a woman’s heart and life can do it, I will repay you. My dearest one, my dearest with the tender voice, I will repay.” He was drenched in pity for himself and her. He held her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers and looked on her sweet face for the last time. “Good-bye!” he whispered to that dear sight, “good-bye!” And then in silence he turned away from her. She could hear his slow retreating footsteps, and something in the rhythm of them threw her into a passion of weeping. He walked away. He had fully meant to go to a lonely place where the meadows were beautiful with white narcissus, and there remain until the hour of his sacrifice should come, but as he walked he lifted up his eyes and saw the morning, the morning like an angel in golden armour, marching down the steeps . . . . It seemed to him that before this splendour he and this blind world in the valley, and his love and all, were no more than a pit of sin. He did not turn aside as he had meant to do, but went on and passed through the wall of the circumference and out upon the rocks, and his eyes were always upon the sunlit ice and snow. He saw their infinite beauty, and his imagination soared over them to the things beyond he was now to resign for ever!