Part 90 (2/2)

'That means, I take it, that before very long I shall be practically blind?'

'I don't like to speak with an air of authority. After all, I am only a surgeon who has bungled himself into pauperdom. You must see a competent man; that much I can tell you in all earnestness.

Do you use your eyes much?'

'Fourteen hours a day, that's all.'

'H'm! You are a literary man, I think?'

'I am. My name is Alfred Yule.'

He had some faint hope that the name might be recognised; that would have gone far, for the moment, to counteract his trouble. But not even this poor satisfaction was to be granted him; to his hearer the name evidently conveyed nothing.

'See a competent man, Mr Yule. Science has advanced rapidly since the days when I was a student; I am only able to a.s.sure you of the existence of disease.'

They talked for half an hour, until both were shaking with cold. Then Yule thrust his hand into his pocket.

'You will of course allow me to offer such return as I am able,' he said. 'The information isn't pleasant, but I am glad to have it.'

He laid five s.h.i.+llings on the chest of drawers--there was no table. The stranger expressed his grat.i.tude.

'My name is Duke,' he said, 'and I was christened Victor--possibly because I was doomed to defeat in life. I wish you could have a.s.sociated the memory of me with happier circ.u.mstances.'

They shook hands, and Yule quitted the house.

He came out again by Camden Town station. The coffee-stall had disappeared; the traffic of the great highway was growing uproarious.

Among all the strugglers for existence who rushed this way and that, Alfred Yule felt himself a man chosen for fate's heaviest infliction. He never questioned the accuracy of the stranger's judgment, and he hoped for no mitigation of the doom it threatened. His life was over--and wasted.

He might as well go home, and take his place meekly by the fireside.

He was beaten. Soon to be a useless old man, a burden and annoyance to whosoever had pity on him.

It was a curious effect of the imagination that since coming into the open air again his eyesight seemed to be far worse than before. He irritated his nerves of vision by incessant tests, closing first one eye then the other, comparing his view of nearer objects with the appearance of others more remote, fancying an occasional pain--which could have had no connection with his disease. The literary projects which had stirred so actively in his mind twelve hours ago were become an insubstantial memory; to the one crus.h.i.+ng blow had succeeded a second, which was fatal. He could hardly recall what special piece of work he had been engaged upon last night. His thoughts were such as if actual blindness had really fallen upon him.

At half-past eight he entered the house. Mrs Yule was standing at the foot of the stairs; she looked at him, then turned away towards the kitchen. He went upstairs. On coming down again he found breakfast ready as usual, and seated himself at the table. Two letters waited for him there; he opened them.

When Mrs Yule came into the room a few moments later she was astonished by a burst of loud, mocking laughter from her husband, excited, as it appeared, by something he was reading.

'Is Marian up?' he asked, turning to her.

'Yes.'

'She is not coming to breakfast?'

'No.'

'Then just take that letter to her, and ask her to read it.'

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