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Gently he began his ministrations to the mother of his beloved. When he had won her confidence, he felt that the battle was half fought. She soon expressed a willingness to submit to anything, to undergo any pain, if only her sight might be restored. This he could not promise, but his experienced eye could detect nothing worse than a cataract obstructing the vision, and he convinced her that it was worth the trial.

One mild winter day she was taken to his office now fitted up with all the belongings of his service. With bated breath he adjusted his instrument. Heavy portieres shut out the daylight. Steadily the electric ray was thrown into the darkened eye. Shrinking with a thousand fears, and tortured with suspense, Doris sank upon a sofa. In silence he applied his tests. She could hear the beatings of her heart. Softly he questioned his patient, who hung upon his words for her life sentence.

At last, lying a hand almost caressingly upon each shoulder, he said:

“My dear Mrs. Hadyn, I think I can give you sight.”

An involuntary cry broke from her lips, and Doris burst into convulsive tears. Then relaxing the tension of these many weary years, the bearer of good tidings folded his arms about the slight form for a moment as he led her to her mother. Not yet, even, would he give full rein to his hopes. He might fail. There was inflammation lurking behind the eye-ball, caused by contagion from its fellow, which, when carelessly bandaged too closely, had burst from its socket, irretrievably lost. He could but try; and now his humanity as well as his love nerved him to the task.

A preliminary course of treatment was ordered, and the Lenten season was nearly over when the eye was declared ready for the knife. The day was appointed, and the patient’s own room was selected as the place. The night before, the doctor came in all worn and tired out from a hurried call to a neighboring city hospital. Doris knew his step and met him at the door.

“Come with me, Doris, into the library,” he said.

Nervous with undefined apprehension, she followed him.

“Can you bear good news?” he asked, bending upon her eyes which held for her the light of loving sympathy. “Will you be as brave as you have been all these years? I was called away yesterday—-“

“Ralph!” she gasped, catching his arm in the excitement of hope.

“Yes–Ralph,” he said, placing his arm about her; “he is cleared at last. The man I was called to see was James Green, Ralph’s fellow-clerk. He was run down by a heavy furniture van and badly crushed. I could not save him, but he knew me, and gave me this paper, which is a confession of his guilt. It completely exonerates your brother.”

“Thank God!” she fervently exclaimed, clasping the paper to her heart.

“Shall we tell Mrs. Haydn?” he asked, still gravely supporting her.

“By all means,” was her happy answer through shining tears; “now–this moment,” leading him away. “Joy does not kill.”

It did not kill; it only braced the grateful sufferer for the ordeal set for the next day.

“Find my boy as soon as you can and bring him to me,” was her prayer; and with a sense of comfort long a stranger, the mother slept peacefully on this, her last night perhaps, of blindness.

The next day she was made ready for her couch, where she was to lie in perfect quiet after the operation. At two o’clock, Dr. Douglas, with two young assistants, entered easily and cheerfully upon his task.

“Are you strong enough to witness it?” he asked in alow voice, as Doris took her stand.

She bowed her head, and the work began. It was neither long nor difficult. A little cocaine in the eye, a quick, perpendicular incision, the deft scooping from the orifice of a hard, pearly ball like an opal setting, a cleansing of film by one skillful sweep, and all was over.