The Argosy — page 304: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

281 A MARRIAGE IN THE DARK. At ten years of age I, Constance Urquhart, was stricken with blindness. As well as I can remember, this did not happen suddenly ; the sense of sight became obscured by degrees. A slight mist seemed at first to veil my eyes, the outlines of objects became blurred and indistinct, colours lost their vividness and blended confusedly with each other, and I was startled at times by fiashes of almost intolerable brightness. Gradually the mist deepened into twilight, and twilight into the blackness of night. I was too young to realise fully the extent of the calamity which had befallen me. My mother disliked talking about it and always endeavoured to evade my questions. Only now and then I could hear her weeping quietly to herself. At first I was terribly frightened, I thought in my childish mind that the sun had departed for ever, and that eternal darkness enveloped mankind. Gradually the truth dawned upon me. JI, only, and a few other unfortunates, it would seem, were to be excluded from the light of day. Others could see ; for them the sun and the stars continued to shine; for them the leaves grew green in summer and brown and gold in autumn, and still the world was fair. From me, alas, even the familiar face of my dearly- loved mother was hidden, and she became a voice and a presence, heard and felt indeed, but unseen. I was alone in the dark. In imagination I saw stretched out before me the long, melancholy vista of my life. Life under a ban; set apart and indescribably solitary; to be lived through somehow amid deep gloom until it merged at last into the profounder shadow of death. Many a time I have thought it would be better to die at once and be done with it ; many a time I have rebelled indignantly against my fate and shed bitter tears over it: so unmerited did it seem to me; so unjust. And then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a new world began to open out forme. A mysterious world full of surprises and revelations, of incredible things. A strange world, in which every variation of texture, every inflection of sound, carried with it new and pregnant meanings ; where touch became a talisman and hearing was the key- stone of knowledge ; and over which music ruled with indisputable sway, the sole source of consolation and delight. The specialists who had been consulted about my case held out little prospect of ultimate recovery, but hope never entirely died with- inme. Now and then faint glimmers passed across my eyes like the first filtrations of light at earliest dawn; but these departed as they came and left me in my accustomed darkness. Always they brought with them a thrill of wild delight and longing, and were followed by the reaction of profound despair. VOL. XLV. | . T COMMICOOOKS.C©