"You must not expect too much," says Miss Torrens. She does not like saying it, but facts are overpowering. Her brother has exacted a pledge from her to say nothing, even now, about his blindness--merely to treat him as weak-eyed temporarily. He will pass muster, he says--will squeak through somehow. "I can't have that glorious girl made miserable," were the words he had used to her, half an hour since. This Irene will be all on tenterhooks till the interview is safely over. Meanwhile it is only prudent not to sound too hopeful a note. It is as well to keep a margin in reserve in case the performance should fall through. Irene's response to her brother's words had been, "She is a glorious girl," and she was on the way to "You should have seen her eyes last night over that Beethoven!" But she broke down on the word _eyes_. How else could it have been? Then the blind man had laughed, in the courage of his heart, as big a laugh as his pitiable weakness could sustain, and had made light of his affliction. He had never given way from the first hour of his revival, when he had asked to have the shutters open, and had been told they were already wide open, and the July sun streaming into the room. It was the Countess who answered Irene's caution, as accompaniment to her morning salute. "We are not to expect _anything_, my dear. That is quite understood. It would be unreasonable. And we won't stop long and tire him. But this girl of mine will never be happy if he goes away without our--well!--becoming acquainted, I might almost say. Because really we are perfect strangers. And when one has shot a man, even by accident...." Her ladyship did not finish, but went on to hope the eyesight was recovering. "Oh yes!" said Irene audaciously. "We are quite hopeful about it now. It will be all right with rest and feeding up. Only, if I let you in to see him you _will_ promise me, won't you--not to say a word about his eyes? It only frightens him, and does no one any good." Of course, Miss Torrens got her promise. It was an easy one to make, because reference to the eyes only seemed a means towards embarrassment. Much easier to say nothing about them. Gwen and Miss Torrens, very _liees_ already, went out by the garden window to talk, but would keep within hearing because breakfast was imminent.