The Lifted Bandage

y in view-point. Life goes on--it's just transfigured. It's as if a bandage should be lifted from our eyes and we should suddenly see things in whose presence we had been always."

The rushing, eager voice stopped. He bent and laid his hand on the older man's and stared at his face, half hidden now in the shadows of the lowering fire. There was no response. The heavy head did not lift and the attitude was unstirred, hopeless. As if struck by a blow he sprang erect and his fingers shut hard. He spoke as if to himself, brokenly.

"He does not believe--a single word--I say. I can't help him--I can't help him."

Suddenly the clinched fists flung out as if of a power not their own, and his voice rang across the room.

"God!" The word shot from him as if a thunderbolt fell with it. "God! Lift the bandage!"

A log fell with a crash into the fire; great battling shadows blurred all the air; he was gone.

The man, startled, drew up his bent shoulders, and pushed back a lock