It was a stifling night in August.  I could not sleep.  Despair filled my heart.  I was blind, blind, blind!  I should be blind for ever!  So entirely had I lost heart that I began to think I would not have performed at all the operation which the doctors said might give me back the use of my eyes.

Presently a sudden, fierce longing to be out of doors came over me.  It was night, very few people would be about.  Old Priscilla slept soundly.  I rose from my bed, and, dressing myself with difficulty, crept, cautious as a thief, to the street door.  The street, a quiet one, was deserted.  For a time I walked backwards and forwards up the street.  The exercise filled me with a peculiar elation.  By carefully counting my footsteps, I gauged accurately the position of my house.  At last, I decided to return, and opening the door, I entered and climbed the stairs.  The atmosphere of the place struck me as strange and unfamiliar.  I felt for a bracket which should have been upon the wall, that I had often been warned to avoid knocking with my head.  It was not there.  I had entered the wrong house.

As I turned to grope my way back, I heard the murmur of voices.  I made my way in the direction of these sounds to seek for assistance.  Suddenly, there fell upon my ears the notes of a piano and a woman’s voice singing.

Music with me was an absorbing passion.  I listened enthralled, placing my ear close to the door from behind which the sound proceeded.  It was a song that few amateurs would dare to attempt, and I waited eagerly to hear how the beautiful voice would render the finale.  But I never heard that last movement.

Instead of the soft, sweet, liquid notes of passionate love, there was a spasmodic, fearful gasp succeeded by a long, deep groan.  The music stopped abruptly, and the piercing cry of a woman rang out.  I threw open the door and rushed headlong into the room.  I heard an oath, an exclamation of surprise, and the muffled cry of the woman.  I turned in the direction of that faint cry.  My foot caught in something, and I fell prostrate on the body of a man.  Before I could rise a strong hand gripped my throat and I heard the sharp click of a pistol lock.

“Spare me!” I cried.  “I am blind, blind, blind!”

I lay perfectly still, crying out these words again and again.

A strong light was turned on my eyes.  There was no sound in the room save the muffled cry of the woman.  The hands at my throat were released, and I was ordered to stand up.  Some elementary tests of my blindness were tried, and I was told to give an account of my presence in the house.  My story seemed to satisfy the man who questioned me.  I was bidden to sit in a chair.  I could hear the sound of men carrying a heavy burden out of the room.  Then the woman’s moans ceased.  A voice at my side bade me drink something out of a glass, enforcing the demand with a pistol at my temple.  A heavy drowsiness came over me, and I sank into unconsciousness.