In place of the former
bereavement of spirit was a new and consuming anxiety for Camilla Van
Arsdale. Io's first telegram from Manzanita went far to appease that.
Miss Van Arsdale had suffered a severe shock, but was now on the road to
recovery: Io would stay indefinitely: there was no reason for Banneker's
coming out for the present: in fact, the patient definitely prohibited
it: letter followed.
The letter, when it came, forced a cry, as of physical pain, from
Banneker's throat. Camilla Van Arsdale was going blind. Some obscure
reflex of the heart trouble had affected the blood supply of the eyes,
and the shock of discovering this had reacted upon the heart. There was
no immediate danger; but neither was there ultimate hope of restored
vision. So much the eminent oculist whom Io had brought from Angelica
City told her.
Your first thought (wrote Io) will be to come out here at once.
Don't. It will be much better for you to wait until she needs you more;
until you can spend two or three weeks or a month with her. Now I
can help her through the days by reading to her and walking with her.
You don't know how happy it makes me to be here where I first knew
you, to live over every event of those days. Your movable shack is
almost as it used to be, though there is no absurd steel boat outside
for me to stumble into.
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