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“It’s very good of you to see me at this hour,” apologised Mr. Carlyle.

The conventional expression of Mr. Carrados’s face changed a little.

“Surely my man has got your name wrong?” he explained. “Isn’t it Louis Calling?”

Mr. Carlyle stopped short and his agreeable smile gave place to a sudden flash of anger or annoyance.

“No sir,” he replied stiffly. “My name is on the card which you have before you.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Carrados, with perfect good-humour. “I hadn’t seen it. But I used to know a Calling some years ago–at St. Michael’s.”

“St. Michael’s!” Mr. Carlyle’s features underwent another change, no less instant and sweeping than before. “St. Michael’s! Wynn Carrados? Good heavens! it isn’t Max Wynn–old ‘Winning’ Wynn”?

“A little older and a little fatter–yes,” replied Carrados. “I have changed my name you see.”

“Extraordinary thing meeting like this,” said his visitor, dropping into a chair and staring hard at Mr. Carrados. “I have changed more than my name. How did you recognize me?”

“The voice,” replied Carrados. “It took me back to that little smoke-dried attic den of yours where we–“

“My God!” exclaimed Carlyle bitterly, “don’t remind me of what we were going to do in those days.” He looked round the well-furnished, handsome room and recalled the other signs of wealth that he had noticed. “At all events, you seem fairly comfortable, Wynn.”

“I am alternately envied and pitied,” replied Carrados, with a placid tolerance of circumstance that seemed characteristic of him. “Still, as you say, I am fairly comfortable.”

“Envied, I can understand. But why are you pitied?”

“Because I am blind,” was the tranquil reply.

“Blind!” exclaimed Mr. Carlyle, using his own eyes superlatively. “Do you mean–literally blind?”

“Literally…. I was riding along a bridle-path through a wood about a dozen years ago with a friend. He was in front. At one point a twig sprang back–you know how easily a thing like that happens. It just flicked my eye–nothing to think twice about.”

“And that blinded you?”

“Yes, ultimately. It’s called amaurosis.”

“I can scarcely believe it. You seem so sure and self-reliant. Your eyes are full of expression–only a little quieter than they used to be. I believe you were typing when I came….Aren’t you having me?”

“You miss the dog and the stick?” smiled Carrados. “No; it’s a fact.”

“What an awful affliction for you, Max. You were always such an impulsive, reckless sort of fellow–never quiet. You must miss such a fearful lot.”

“Has anyone else recognized you?” asked Carrados quietly.

“Ah, that was the voice, you said,” replied Carlyle.

“Yes; but other people heard the voice as well. Only I had no blundering, self-confident eyes to be hoodwinked.”

“That’s a rum way of putting it,” said Carlyle. “Are your ears never hoodwinked, may I ask?”

“Not now. Nor my fingers. Nor any of my other senses that have to look out for themselves.”

“Well, well,” murmured Mr. Carlyle, cut short in his sympathetic emotions. “I’m glad you take it so well. Of course, if you find it an advantage to be blind, old man—-” He stopped and reddened. “I beg your pardon,” he concluded stiffly.

“Not an advantage perhaps,” replied the other thoughtfully. “Still it has compensations that one might not think of. A new world to explore, new experiences, new powers awakening; strange new perceptions; life in the fourth dimension. But why do you beg my pardon, Louis?”

“I am an ex-solicitor, struck off in connexion with the falsifying of a trust account, Mr. Carrados,” replied Carlyle, rising.

“Sit down, Louis,” said Carrados suavely. His face, even his incredibly living eyes, beamed placid good-nature. “The chair on which you will sit, the roof above you, all the comfortable surroundings to which you have so amiably alluded, are the direct result of falsifying a trust account. But do I call you ‘Mr. Carlyle’ in consequence? Certainly not, Louis.”

“I did not falsify the account,” cried Carlyle hotly. He sat down however, and added more quietly: “But why do I tell you all this? I have never spoken of it before.”