"Annie, I'm scared!" she whispered. "Oh! if I could only take care of myself. Tell me, Annie--I'll get well, won't I?" "Sure thing, Kid--it's a cinch." "Where is he?" Mary demanded after some hesitation. "Who? Him?" Annie employed her usual fashion of indicating the identity of Sim Gage. "No, I mean Doctor Barnes." "He'll be going down below pretty soon. He don't know anything more than I do about what that fool stuff in the letter means." "But say," she added after a time, "I been kind of looking around in desks and places, you know--I have to red things up--and I run across another thing, some more writing." "You mustn't do these things, Annie! It may be private." "Oh, no, it ain't. It's only some writing copied from a magazine, like enough. It was on one of the desks in this house--just in there." "Copied?--What is it?" "I don't know. Poetry stuff--sounds mushy. I didn't know men would do things like copying out poetry from magazines. Never heard of Mr. Symonds--did you?" "How can I tell, Annie?" "I'll read it for you if you'll let me. It's dark, in here--I'll just go outside the door and read it through the crack at you, so's the light won't hurt you anyways." And so, faintly, as from a detached intelligence, there came into Mary Gage's darkened room, her darkened life, some words well-written, ill-read, which it seemed to her she might have dreamed: "As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me; all things leave me: You remain. "Other thoughts may come and go, Other moments I may know That shall waft me, in their going, As a breath blown to and fro. Fragrant memories; fragrant memories Come and go. "Only thoughts of you remain In my heart where they have lain, Perfumed thoughts of you, remaining, A hid sweetness, in my brain. Others leave me; all things leave me: You remain." "Read them over again!" said Mary Gage, sitting upon her couch. "Read them again, Annie! I want to learn it all by heart." And Annie, patient as ever, read the words over to her. The keen senses of Mary Gage recorded them. "I can say them now!" said she, as much to herself as to her friend. And she did say them, over and over again. "Annie," she cried, as she sat up suddenly. "I can't stand it any more! I can see! I can see!" She was tearing at the bandages about her head when Annie entered and put down her hands, terrified at this disobedience of orders. "Annie, I _know_ I can see! It was light--at the door there! I can see. I can _see_!" She began to weep, trembling. "Hush!" said Annie, frightened. "It ain't possible! It can't be true! _What_ did you see?" "Nothing!" said Mary Gage, half sobbing. "Just the light. Don't tell him. Put back the bandage. But, oh, Annie, Annie, I can _see_!"