The blind woman laid her hand on her heart, as if she felt there a cruel pain, then spoke to Beaumont in a strangled kind of voice.
"You must think me a curious creature, Mr. Beaumont," she said, rapidly, "to take such an interest in a man of whom I know nothing, but remember I am blind, and be kind to my failing. I can only judge people by their voices, and Doctor Nestley's voice has affected me more than any one else's. Why, I do not know. Of course I am precluded by my misfortune from many things, but--but--you understand--ah, you must understand how difficult it is for me to conceal my feelings. He is a stranger, I am a blind woman, but his voice rouses in me a strange feeling I cannot explain even to myself. I know I am foolish talking like this, so forget what I have said. You will forget, will you not?"
"Miss Mosser," said Beaumont gravely, rising to his feet, "you may be sure I will respect what I have heard as a sacred confidence."
"Thank you, thank you, very much," cried the poor woman, while the tears ran down her cheeks. "I know I am foolish. You must despise me for the way I've spoken. Still, I'm blind--blind."
Beaumont felt a pang of pity in his hard heart at the anguish of this unhappy woman, shut out from all love as between man and woman by her misfortune, and he was about to speak when Cecilia lifted her head.
"Will you go now, Mr. Beaumont?" she said, in a low voice. "Please leave me. I will be all right soon, and can then go home. But you will not forget your promise?"
"My promise is sacred," said the artist slowly, and turning away he left the blind woman seated in the hollow with her hands clasped on her lap, and her sightless eyes looking up to the blue sky.
"Strange," he thought, as he lighted a cigarette, "that girl has fallen in love with a voice, and does not even know she is in love, although she half guesses it. She knows nothing of Nestley and yet she loves him. Why? because he has a charming voice. I suppose we must call it a woman's instinct--ah if she only knew how hopeless her love is--Nestley is too much bewitched by Una to waste a thought on her."
This discovery, slight as it was, gratified Beaumont's keen sense of intrigue, as it gave him another card to play in the game against Patience. If he could do nothing with Reginald because he was embittered against him by his mother, still he could separate him from Una by circulating a few skilful falsehoods. If Cecilia ever learned that Nestley loved Una, she was too much of a woman to keep silent in the matter, and through her Una would hear of Nestley's infatuation; and, again, to secure Nestley to herself, Cecilia, knowing Reginald adored Una, would tell him of this new complication, with the result that Nestley and Reginald would quarrel over Miss Challoner, and, perhaps, in the end, such a quarrel would part Una and her lover for ever. It was all very vague and intangible as yet, still Beaumont felt in some mysterious way that the knowledge of the blind girl's love for Nestley might prove useful to him in weaving his nets around his son so as to secure him entirely to himself.