"Terrible!" she ejaculated, glancing at me with those wonderful dark eyes of hers that seemed to hold me in fascination and look me through and through. "We who possess our eyesight cannot imagine the great disadvantages under which the blind are placed. How fortunate that you are cured!" "Yes," I explained. "The cure is little short of a miracle. The three greatest oculists in London all agreed that I was incurable, yet there one day came to me a man who said he could give me back my sight. I allowed him to experiment, and he was successful. From the day that I could see plainly he, curiously enough, disappeared." "How strange! Did he never come and see you afterwards?" "No. He took no reward, but simply discontinued his visits. I do not even know his real name." "How extraordinary!" she observed, greatly interested. "I really believe that there is often more romance and mystery in real life than in books. Such a circumstance appears absolutely bewildering." "If to you, Miss Anson, then how much more to me! I, who had relinquished all hope of again looking upon the world and enjoying life, now find myself actually in possession of my vision and able to mix with my fellow-men. Place yourself for a moment in my position, and try to imagine my constant thankfulness." "You must feel that a new life is opened to you--that you have begun a fresh existence," she observed with a true touch of sympathy in her sweet voice. Then she added, as if by afterthought. "How many of us would be glad to commence life afresh!" The tone in which she uttered that sentence seemed incongruous. A few moments before she had been all brightness and gaiety, but in those words there vibrated a distinctly gloomy note. "Surely you do not desire to commence your life again?" I said. She sighed slightly. "All of us have our burden of regrets," she answered vaguely, raising her eyes for an instant to mine, and then lowering them. We appeared in those moments to grow confidential. The crimson and orange was fast fading from the sky. It was growing dark beneath the shadow of the great elms, and already the line of street lamps out in Kensington Gore were twinkling through the foliage on our left. No one was in the vicinity, and we were walking very slowly, for, truth to tell, I desired to delay our parting until the very last moment. Of all the leafy spots in giant London, there is none so rural, so romantic, or so picturesque in summer as that portion of Kensington Gardens lying between Queen's Gate and the Broad Walk. Save for the dull roar of distant traffic, one might easily fancy one's self far in the country, a hundred miles from the sound of Bow Bells. "But you are young, Miss Anson," I observed philosophically, after a brief pause. "And if I may be permitted to say so, you have scarcely begun to live your life. Yet you actually wish to commence afresh!" "Yes," she responded briefly, "I do. Strange, is it not?"