The stranger made a close scrutiny of Yule's face, and asked certain questions with reference to his visual sensations.
'I hardly like to propose it,' he said at length, 'but if you were willing to accompany me to a very poor room that I have not far from here, I could make the examination formally.'
'I will go with you.'
They turned away from the stall, and the ex-surgeon led into a by-street. Yule wondered at himself for caring to seek such a singular consultation, but he had a pressing desire to hear some opinion as to the state of his eyes. Whatever the stranger might tell him, he would afterwards have recourse to a man of recognised standing; but just now companionship of any kind was welcome, and the poor hungry fellow, with his dolorous life-story, had made appeal to his sympathies. To give money under guise of a fee would be better than merely offering alms.
'This is the house,' said his guide, pausing at a dirty door. 'It isn't inviting, but the people are honest, so far as I know. My room is at the top.'
'Lead on,' answered Yule.
In the room they entered was nothing noticeable; it was only the poorest possible kind of bed-chamber, or all but the poorest possible. Daylight had now succeeded to dawn, yet the first thing the stranger did was to strike a match and light a candle.
'Will you kindly place yourself with your back to the window?' he said. 'I am going to apply what is called the catoptric test. You have probably heard of it?'
'My ignorance of scientific matters is fathomless.'
The other smiled, and at once offered a simple explanation of the term. By the appearance of the candle as it reflected itself in the patient's eye it was possible, he said, to decide whether cataract had taken hold upon the organ.
For a minute or two he conducted his experiment carefully, and Yule was at no loss to read the result upon his face.
'How long have you suspected that something was wrong?' the surgeon asked, as he put down the candle.
'For several months.'
'You haven't consulted anyone?'
'No one. I have kept putting it off. Just tell me what you have discovered.'
'The back of the right lens is affected beyond a doubt.'
'That means, I take it, that before very long I shall be practically blind?'
'I don't like to speak with an air of authority. After all, I am only a surgeon who has bungled himself into pauperdom. You must see a competent man; that much I can tell you in all earnestness.
Do you use your eyes much?'
'Fourteen hours a day, that's all.'
'H'm! You are a literary man, I think?'
'I am. My name is Alfred Yule.'
He had some faint hope that the name might be recognised; that would have gone far, for the moment, to counteract his trouble.
But not even this poor satisfaction was to be granted him; to his hearer the name evidently conveyed nothing.
'See a competent man, Mr Yule. Science has advanced rapidly since the days when I was a student; I am only able to assure you of the existence of disease.'
They talked for half an hour, until both were shaking with cold.
Then Yule thrust his hand into his pocket.
'You will of course allow me to offer such return as I am able,'
he said. 'The information isn't pleasant, but I am glad to have it.'
He laid five shillings on the chest of drawers--there was no table. The stranger expressed his gratitude.
'My name is Duke,' he said, 'and I was christened Victor--possibly because I was doomed to defeat in life. I wish you could have associated the memory of me with happier circumstances.'
They shook hands, and Yule quitted the house.
He came out again by Camden Town station. The coffee-stall had disappeared; the traffic of the great highway was growing uproarious. Among all the strugglers for existence who rushed this way and that, Alfred Yule felt himself a man chosen for fate's heaviest infliction. He never questioned the accuracy of the stranger's judgment, and he hoped for no mitigation of the doom it threatened. His life was over--and wasted.
