This man was blind though his eyes were wide open.
"Torp, is that you? They said you were coming." Dick looked puzzled and a
little irritated at the silence.
"No; it's only me," was the answer, in a strained little whisper. Maisie could
hardly move her lips.
"H'm!" said Dick, composedly, without moving. "This is a new phenomenon.
Darkness I'm getting used to; but I object to hearing voices."
Was he mad, then, as well as blind, that he talked to himself? Maisie"s heart
beat more wildly, and she breathed in gasps. Dick rose and began to feel his
way across the room, touching each table and chair as he passed. Once he caught
his foot on a rug, and swore, dropping on his knees to feel what the
obstruction might be. Maisie remembered him walking in the Park as though all
the earth belonged to him, tramping up and down her studio two months ago, and
flying up the gangway of the Channel steamer. The beating of her heart was
making her sick, and Dick was coming nearer, guided by the sound of her
breathing. She put out a hand mechanically to ward him off or to draw him to
herself, she did not know which. It touched his chest, and he stepped back as
though he had been shot.
"It's Maisie!" said he, with a dry sob.
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