No More Learning

"When she finds that I don't write, she'll stop writing. It's better
so. I couldn't be any use to her now," Dick argued, and the tempter
suggested that he should make known his condition. Every nerve in him
revolted. "I have fallen low enough already. I'm not going to beg for
pity. Besides, it would be cruel to her. " He strove to put Maisie out of
his thoughts; but the blind have many opportunities for thinking, and as
the tides of his strength came back to him in the long employless days
of dead darkness, Dick's soul was troubled to the core. Another letter,
and another, came from Maisie. Then there was silence, and Dick sat by
the window, the pulse of summer in the air, and pictured her being won
by another man, stronger than himself. His imagination, the keener for
the dark background it worked against, spared him no single detail that
might send him raging up and down the studio, to stumble over the stove
that seemed to be in four places at once. Worst of all, tobacco would
not taste in the darkness. The arrogance of the man had disappeared, and
in its place were settled despair that Torpenhow knew, and blind passion
that Dick confided to his pillow at night. The intervals between
the paroxysms were filled with intolerable waiting and the weight of
intolerable darkness.

"Come out into the Park," said Torpenhow.
"You haven't stirred out since
the beginning of things. "

"What's the use? There's no movement in the dark; and, besides,"--he
paused irresolutely at the head of the stairs,--"something will run over
me. "

"Not if I'm with you. Proceed gingerly. "

The roar of the streets filled Dick with nervous terror, and he clung to
Torpenhow's arm. "Fancy having to feel for a gutter with your foot! " he
said petulantly, as he turned into the Park. "Let's curse God and die. "

"Sentries are forbidden to pay unauthorised compliments. By Jove, there
are the Guards! "

Dick's figure straightened. "Let's get near 'em. Let's go in and look.
Let's get on the grass and run. I can smell the trees.