ask the inevitable question, "To whom have I the honor of
speaking?"

The lady answers, "I am Miss Dunross; and I hope, if you have no
objection to it, to help Peter in nursing you."

This, then, is the "other person" dimly alluded to by our host! I
think directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dunross among her
poor and afflicted neighbors; and I do not forget the melancholy
result of her devotion to others which has left her an incurable
invalid. My anxiety to see this lady more plainly increases a
hundred-fold. I beg her to add to my grateful sense of her
kindness by telling me why the room is so dark "Surely," I say,
"it cannot be night already?"

"You have not been asleep," she answers, "for more than two
hours. The mist has disappeared, and the sun is shining."

I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side.

"May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross?"

"To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine?"

"Yes--with your permission. I own I should like to see the
sunlight."

"I will send Peter to you immediately."

The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In another
moment, unless I say something to stop her, the woman whom I am
so eager to see will have left the room.

"Pray don't go!" I say. "I cannot think of troubling you to take
a trifling message for me. The servant will come in, if I only
ring the bell."

She pauses--more shadowy than ever--halfway between the bed and
the door, and answers a little sadly:

"Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. He
closed the curtains by my order."

The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room dark while
Miss Dunro ss is in it? Are her eyes weak? No; if her eyes were
weak, they would be protected by a shade. Dark as it is, I can
see that she does not wear a shade. Why has the room been
darkened--if not for me? I cannot venture on asking the
question--I can only make my excuses in due form.

"Invalids only think of themselves," I say. "I supposed that you
had kindly darkened the room on my account."

She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. When she
does answer, it is in these startling words:

"You were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been
darkened--not on your account, but on _mine_."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CATS.

MISS DUNROSS had so completely perplexed me, that I was at a loss
what to say next.

To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room in
darkness while she remained in it, might prove (for all I knew to
the contrary) to be an act of positive rudeness. To venture on
any general expression of sympathy with her, knowing absolutely
nothing of the circumstances, might place us both in an
embarrassing position at the outset of our acquaintance. The one
thing I could do was to beg that the present arrangement of the
room might not be disturbed, and to leave her to decide as to
whether she should admit me to her confidence or exclude me from
it, at her own sole discretion.

She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. Taking a
chair at the foot of the bed, she told me simply and unreservedly
the sad secret of the darkened room.

"If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine," she began, "you
must accustom yourself to the world of shadows in which it is my
lot to live. Some time since, a dreadful illness raged among the
people in our part of this island; and I was so unfortunate as to
catch the infection. When I recovered--no! 'Recovery' is not the
right word to use--let me say, when I escaped death, I found
myself afflicted by a nervous malady which has defied medical
help from that time to this. I am suffering (as the doctors
explain it to me) from a morbidly sensitive condition of the
nerves near the surface to the action of light. If I were to draw
the curtains, and look out of that window, I should feel the
acutest pain all over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the
curtains with my bare hands, I should feel the same pain in my
hands. You can just see, perhaps, that I have a very large and
very thick veil on my head. I let it fall over my face and neck
and hands, when I have occasion to pass along the corridors or to
enter my father's study--and I find it protection enough. Don't
be too ready to deplore my sad condition, sir! I have got so used
to living in the dark that I can see quite well enough for all


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