Underhand ways were resorted to of cheating despair and getting at the pocket of Hope. Said one gentleman to the Earl--who was keeping his counsel religiously--"He can't read small print." Whereto the Earl replied--"Not yet awhile, but one could hardly expect that"; and felt that he was carrying out his promise with a minimum of falsehood. Yet his conscience wavered, because an eyesight may be unable to read small print, and yet unable to read large print, or any print at all. Perhaps he had better have left the first broad indisputable truth to impose on its hearer unassisted. Another visitor scored a success on behalf of Optimism by reporting that the patient had smoked a cigar in defiance of medical prohibitions. "Can't be much wrong with his eyes," said this one, "if he can smoke. You shut your eyes, and try!" Put to the proof, this dictum received more confirmation than it deserved, solely to secure an audience for the flattering tales of Hope. Much of the afternoon passed too, but without visitors. Because it would never do, said Irene, for her brother not to be at his best when Gwen and her mother came to pay their visit, resolved on this morning, at what was usually the best moment of his day--about five o'clock. Besides, he was to be got up and really dressed--not merely huddled into clothes--and this was a fatiguing operation, never carried out in dire earnest before. Doctor and Nurse had assented, on condition that Mr. Torrens should be content to remain in his room, and not insist on going downstairs. Where was the use of his doing so, with such a journey before him to-morrow? Better surely to husband the last grain of strength--the last inch-milligramme of power--for an eighteen-mile ride, even with all the tonics in the world to back it! Mr. Torrens consented to this reservation, and promised not to be rebellious. So--in time--the hour was at hand when he would see.... No!--_not_ see--there was the sting of it!... that girl he had spoken with at Arthur's Bridge. The vision of her in the sunset was upon him still. He had pleaded with his sister that, come what might, she should not come to him in his darkness, in the hope that this darkness might pass away and leave her image open to him as before. For this hope had mixed itself with that strong desire of his heart that his own disaster should weigh upon her as little as possible. He had kept this meeting back almost till the eleventh hour, hoping against hope that light would break; longing each day for a gleam of the dawn that was to give him his life once more, and make the whole sad story a matter of the past. And now the time had come; and here he stood awaiting the ordeal he had to pass successfully, or face his failure as he might.