Richard and Arthur

"Mr. St. Claire? Is there such a person here?" and Richard
Harrington had crossed the threshold of the door, and with his
sightless eyes rolling around the room, stood waiting for an
answer.

How well Arthur remembered that rich, full, musical voice. It
seemed to him but yesterday since, he heard it before, and he
shrank more and more from the reply which must be made to that
question, and quickly, too, for the countenance of the blind man
was beginning to wear a look of perplexity at the continued
silence.

Summoning all his courage he stepped forward and taking the hand
groping in the air, said rapidly, "Excuse me, Mr. Harrington, I
hardly know what to say, I've come upon so queer an errand. You
know Edith Hastings, the little girl who lived with Mrs.
Atherton?"

He thought by introducing Edith at once to divert the blind man
from himself; but Richard's quick ear had caught a tone not wholly
unfamiliar as he replied, "Yes, I know Edith Hastings, and it seems to me I ought to know
you, too. I've heard your name and voice before. Wasn't it in
Geneva?" and the eagle eves fastened themselves upon the wall just
back of where Arthur stood.

Arthur fairly gasped for breath, and for an instant he was as
blind as Richard himself; then, catching at the word Geneva, he
answered, "Did you ever live in Geneva, sir?"