Blindness, according to this little lady’s ideas, evidently sprang from the presence of a cur and an unsatisfied hunger for copper coin. Sometimes it does. The tall graceful lady looked up carelessly, saying, “Hush, dear!” She was quite close to them now, for they were walking towards each other, and Dorothy gave a great gasp, for before her stood _Eva Plowden._ There was no doubt about it. She was paler and haughtier-looking than of yore; but it was she. No one who had once seen her could mistake that queenly beauty. Certainly Dorothy could not mistake it. “What is the matter, Doll?” said Ernest, carelessly. He was thinking of other things. “Nothing; I hurt myself.” They were quite close now. And Eva, too, looked at them, and she, too, saw the face she had never thought to see again. With all her eyes, and with her lips parted as though to cry out, she gazed at the sight before her—slowly, slowly, taking in all it meant. They were nearly level now. Then there leaped up into her eyes and face—the eyes and face which a second before had been so calm and statue-like—a wild light of love, an intensity of passionate and jealous desire, such as is not often to be seen on the faces of women. “Ernest there, and Ernest blind, and being led by the hand of Dorothy, and looking happy with her! How dared she touch her love! How dared he look happy with her!” Those were the thoughts which flashed through her troubled mind. She made a step towards them, as though to address him, and the blind eyes fell upon her lovely face, and wandered over it. It made her mad. His eyes were on her face, and yet he could not see her. O God! Dorothy saw the motion, and, moved by an overmastering instinct, threw herself between them in an attitude of protection not unmixed with defiance. And so, for a second, their eyes flashing and their bosoms heaving with emotion, the two women stood face to face, and the blind pathetic eyes wandered uneasily over both, feeling a presence they were unable to define. It was a tragic, almost a dreadful scene. The passions it revealed were almost too intense for words, as no brush can justly paint a landscape made vivid by the unnatural fierceness of the lightning. “Well, Doll, why do you stop?” Ernest said, impatiently. His voice broke the spell. Eva withdrew her arm, which was half outstretched, and touched her lips with her finger as though to enjoin silence. Then a deep misery spread itself over her flushed face, her head sank low, and she passed thence with rapid steps. Presently the nurse with the baby followed her, and Dorothy noticed vaguely that this child had also a mark upon its forehead. The whole thing had not taken forty seconds. “Doll,” said Ernest, in a wild voice, and commencing to tremble, “who was that passed us?” “A lady,” was the answer. “A lady; yes, I know that—what lady?” “I don’t know—a lady with children.” It was a fib; but she could not tell him then; an instinct warned her not to do so.