"
"You know!" ejaculated Dan.
"Certainly I know. Isn't Martha one of the elect? I reckon everybody in
the whole town but you knew it before noon of the day after the meeting."
Dan muttered something about being a blind fool and the old Doctor
answered, "Humph! The fools are they who see too much, boy. Such
blindness as yours is a gift of the gods; for Heaven's sake don't let
any quack fit you out with glasses!"
Dan threw himself wearily into a chair and there was a spirit of
recklessness in his reply, as though he were letting go of himself again.
"How is a blind man to recognize a quack? I would to God I had your
glasses!"
"Perhaps," said the Doctor deliberately, "I might lend them to you, just
for once, you know."
"Well then," said the other, sitting up suddenly, "let me have them! How
do you see this thing? What have I done or not done? For what shall I
blame myself? What fatal error have I made that, with the best of
motives, with the--," he hesitated, then--"I can say it to you, Doctor,
and I will--with the sacrifice of the dearest thing in the world to me, I
am cast out in this fashion? If I can find a reason for it, I can bear
it."
"It is your blindness, boy. You could not help it; you were born blind.
I have always known this would come."
"You have always known this would come?" repeated Dan questioningly.
"Yes, I have always known, because for half a century, boy, I have
observed the spirit of this institution.
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