Whatever it is you suffer from must have come on quickly. Tell me all you can remember of it.’

The Doctor listened attentively whilst Harold told all he could remember of his sufferings. When he spoke of the return of old rheumatic pains his hearer said involuntarily: ‘Good!’ Harold paused; but went on at once. The Doctor recognised that he had rightly appraised his remark, and by it judged that he was a well- educated man. Something in the method of speaking struck him, and he said, as nonchalantly as he could:

‘By the way, which was your University?’

‘Cambridge. Trinity.’ He spoke without thinking, and the instant he had done so stopped. The sense of his blindness rushed back on him. He could not see; and his