What I have since heard from
you has convinced me; your having suffered from rheumatic fever, and the
recrudescence of the rheumatic pain after your terrible experience of the
fire and that long chilling swim with so seemingly hopeless an end to it;
the symptoms which I have since noticed, though they have not been as
enlightening to me as they might be. Your disease, as I have diagnosed
it, is an obscure one and not common. I have not before been able to
study a case. All these things give me great hopes.' 'Thank God! Thank God!' the voice from the bed was now a whisper. 'Thank God! say I too. This that you suffer from is an acute form of
inflammation of the optic nerve. It may of course end badly; in
permanent loss of sight. But I hope--I believe, that in your case it
will not be so. You are young, and you are immensely strong; not merely
muscularly, but in constitution. I can see that you have been an
athlete, and no mean one either. All this will stand to you. But it
will take time. It will need all your own help; all the calm restraint
of your body and your mind. I am doing all that science knows; you must
do the rest!' He waited, giving time to the other to realise his ideas. Harold lay still for a long time before he spoke:

'Doctor.' The voice was so strangely different that the other was more
hopeful at once. He had feared opposition, or conflict of some kind. He
answered as cheerily as he could:

'Yes! I am listening.' 'You are a good fellow; and I am grateful to you, both for what you have
done and what you have told me. I cannot say how grateful just yet; hope
unmans me at present. But I think you deserve that I should tell you the
truth!' The other nodded; he forgot that the speaker could not see. 'I was not intending to commit suicide. Such an idea didn't even enter
my head. To me, suicide is the resource of a coward. I have been in too
many tight places to ever fear that.' 'Then in the name of goodness why were you trying to get out of that
window?' 'I wanted to escape; to get away!' 'In your shirt and trousers; and they are not over much! Without even
slippers!' A faint smile curled round the lips of the injured man. Hope
was beginning to help already. 'Even that way!' 'But man alive! you were going to your death. How could you expect to
get away in such an outfit without being discovered? When you were
missed the whole countryside would have been up, and even before the hue-
and-cry the first person who saw you would have taken charge of you.' 'I know! I know! I had thought of it all. But I was willing to chance
it. I had my own reasons!' He was silent a while. The Doctor was
silent too. Each man was thinking in his own way. Presently the Doctor
spoke:

'Look here, old chap! I don't want to pry into your secrets; but, won't
you let me help you? I can hold my tongue. I want to help you. You
have earned that wish from any man, and woman too, who saw the burning
ship and what you did to save those on board. There is nothing I would
not do for you. Nothing! I don't ask you to tell me all; only enough
for me to understand and help. I can see that you have some overpowering
wish to get away. Some reason that I cannot fathom, certainly without a
clue. You may trust me, I assure you. If you could look into my face,
my eyes, you would understand. But--There! take my hand. It may tell
you something!' Harold took the hand placed in his, and held it close. He pressed his
other hand over it also, as though the effect of the two hands would
bring him double knowledge. It was infinitely pathetic to see him trying
to make his untrained fingers do the duty of his trained eyes. But,
trained or not, his hands had their instinct. Laying down gently the
hand he held he said, turning his bandaged eyes in the direction of his
companion:

'I shall trust you! Are we alone; absolutely alone?' 'Absolutely!' 'Have I your solemn promise that anything I say shall never go beyond
yourself?' 'I promise. I can swear, if it will make your mind more easy in the
matter.' 'What do you hold most sacred in the world?' Harold had an odd thought;
his question was its result. 'All told, I should think my profession! Perhaps it doesn't seem to you
much to swear by; but it is all my world! But I have been brought up in
honour, and you may trust my promise--as much as anything I could swear.' 'All right! My reason for wanting to get away was because I knew Lady de
Lannoy!' 'What!' Then after a pause: 'I should have thought that was a reason for
wanting to stay. She seems not only one of the most beautiful, but the
sweetest woman I ever met.' 'She is all that! And a thousand times more!' 'Then why--Pardon me!' 'I cannot tell you all; but you must take it that my need to get away is
imperative.' After pondering a while Mr. Hilton said suddenly:

'I must ask your pardon again. Are you sure there is no mistake. Lady
de Lannoy is not married; has not been. She is Countess in her own
right. It is quite a romance. She inherited from some old branch of
more than three hundred years ago.' Again Harold smiled; he quite saw
what the other meant. He answered gravely

'I understand. But it does not alter my opinion; my purpose. It is
needful--absolutely and imperatively needful that I get away without her
recognising me, or knowing who I am.' 'She does not know you now. She has not seen you yet.' 'That is why I hoped to get away in time; before she should recognise me. If I stay quiet and do all you wish, will you help me?' 'I will! And what then?' 'When I am well, if it should be so, I shall steal away, this time
clothed, and disappear out of her life without her knowing. She may
think it ungrateful that one whom she has treated so well should behave
so badly. But that can't be helped. It is the lesser evil of the two.' 'And I must abet you? All right! I will do it; though you must forgive
me if you should ever hear that I have abused you and said bad things of
you. It will have to be all in the day's work if I am not ultimately to
give you away. I must take steps at once to keep her from seeing you. I
shall have to invent some story; some new kind of dangerous disease,
perhaps. I shall stay here and nurse you myself!' Harold spoke in
joyful gratitude:

'Oh, you _are_ good. But can you spare the time? How long will it all
take?' 'Some weeks! Perhaps!' He paused as if thinking. 'Perhaps in a month's
time I shall unbandage your eyes. You will then see; or . . . ' 'I understand! I shall be patient!' In the morning Mr. Hilton in reporting to Lady de Lannoy told her that he
considered it would be necessary to keep his patient very quiet, both in
mind and body. In the course of the conversation he said:

'Anything which might upset him must be studiously avoided. He is not an
easy patient to deal with; he doesn't like people to go near him. I
think, therefore, it will be well if even you do not see him. He seems
to have an odd distrust of people, especially of women.