"I will tell you some time," he said. "Not now!" And then he drew a long breath and spoke straight on, as though some obstacle to speech had gone. "It has been a terrible time, Lady Gwendolen--this first knowledge of ... of what I have lost. Put recovery aside for a moment--let the chance of it lie by, until it is on the horizon. Think only what the black side of the shield means--the appalling darkness in the miserable time to come--the old age when folk will call me the blind Mr. Torrens; will say of me:--'You know, he was not born blind--it was an accident--a gunshot wound--a long while back now.' And all that long while back will have been a long vacuity to me, and Heaven knows what burden to others.... I have known it all from the first. I knew it when I waked to my senses in the room upstairs--to all my senses but one. I knew it when I heard them speak hopefully of the case; hope means fear, and I knew what the fear was they were hoping against. That early morning when stupor came to an end, and my consciousness came back, I remembered all. But I thought the darkness was only the sweet, wholesome darkness of night, and my heart beat for the coming of the day. The day came, sure enough, but I knew nothing of it. The first voice I heard was Mrs. Bailey's, singing paeans over my recovery. She had been lying in wait for it, in a chair beside the bed which I picture to myself as a chair of vast scope and pretensions. I did not use my tongue, when I found it, to ask where I was--because I knew I was somewhere and the bed was very comfortable. I asked what o'clock it was, and was told it was near nine. Then, said I, why not open the shutters and let in the light?" "What did Mrs. Bailey say?" "Mrs. Bailey said Lord have mercy, gracious-goodness-her, and I at once perceived that I was in the hands of a good creature. I must have done so, because I exhorted her to act in her official capacity. When she said:--'Why ever now, when the sun's a-shining fit to brile the house up!' I said to her--to remove ambiguity, you see--'Do be a good creature and tell me, _is_ the room light or dark? She replied in a form of affidavit:--'So help me, Mr. Torrens, if this was the last Bible word I was to speak, this room is light, not dark, nor yet it won't be, not till this blessed evening when there come candles or the lamp, as preferred.' I had a sickening perplexity for a while whether I was sane or mad, awake or dreaming, lying there with my heart adding to my embarrassment needlessly by beating in a hurry. Then I remember how it came to me all at once--the whole meaning of it. Till now, blind men had been other people. Now I was to be one myself.... Say something!... I don't like my own voice speaking alone.... there _is_ no one else in the room, is there?" "Not a soul. And nobody will come. The dowager-duchess is having tea in her own room, and all the others will be late."