She smiled satirically.

"What has become of your memory, my dear?" she asked. "What were you afraid of? You certainly never said a word to me of this poor man's deformity. You felt yourself, I suppose, (just as Oscar felt himself), placed between a choice of difficulties. On one side, my dislike of dark colors and dark people warned Oscar to hold his tongue. On the other, my hatred of having advantage taken of my blindness to keep things secret from me, pressed him to speak out. Isn't that enough—with his shy disposition, poor fellow—to account for his being embarrassed? Besides," she added, speaking more seriously, "perhaps he saw in my manner towards him that he had disappointed and pained me."

"How?" I asked.

"Don't you remember his once acknowledging in the garden that he had painted his face in the character of Bluebeard, to amuse the children? It was not delicate, it was not affectionate—it was not like him—to show such insensibility as that to his brother's shocking disfigurement. He ought to have remembered it, he ought to have respected it. There! we will say no more. We will go indoors and open the piano and try to forget."

Even Oscar's clumsy excuse in the garden—instead of confirming her suspicion—had lent itself to strengthen the foregone conclusion rooted in her mind! At that critical moment—before I had consulted with the twin-brothers as to what was to be done next—it was impossible to say more. I felt seriously alarmed when I thought of the future. When she was told—as told she must be—of the dreadful delusion into which she had fallen, what would be the result to Oscar? what would be the effect on herself? I own I shrank from pursuing the inquiry.

When we reached the turn in the valley, I looked back at Browndown for the last time. The twin-brothers were still in the place at which we had left them. Though the faces were indistinguishable, I could still see the figures plainly—Oscar sitting crouched up on the wall; Nugent erect at his side, with one hand laid on his shoulder. Even at that distance, the types of the two characters were expressed in the attitudes of the two men. As we entered the new winding of the valley which shut them out from view, I felt (so easy is it to comfort a woman!) that the commanding position of Nugent had produced its encouraging impression on my mind. "He will find a way out of it," I said to myself, "Nugent will help us through!"



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

He finds a Way out of it

WE sat down at the piano, as Lucilla had proposed. She wished me to play first, and to play alone. I was teaching her, at the time, one of the Sonatas of Mozart; and I now tried to go on with the lesson. Never before, or since, have I played so badly, as on that day! The divine serenity and completeness by which Mozart's music is, to my mind, raised above all other music that ever was written, can only be worthily interpreted by a player whose whole mind is given undividedly to the work. Devoured as I then was by my own anxieties, I might profane those heavenly melodies—I could not play them. Lucilla accepted my excuses, and took my place.

Half an hour passed, without news from Browndown.

Calculated by reference to itself, half an hour is no doubt a short space of time. Calculated by reference to your own suspense, while your own interests are at stake, half an hour is an eternity. Every minute that passed, leaving Lucilla still undisturbed in her delusion, was a minute that pricked me in the conscience. The longer we left her in ignorance, the more painful to all of us the hard duty of enlightening her would become. I began to get restless. Lucilla, on her side, began to complain of fatigue. After the agitation that she had gone through, the inevitable reaction had come. I recommended her to go to her room and rest. She took my advice. In the state of my mind at that time, it was an inexpressible relief to me to be left by myself.

After pacing backwards and forwards for some little time in the sitting-room, and trying vainly to see my way through the difficulties that now beset us, I made up my mind to wait no longer for the news that never came. The brothers were still at Browndown. To Browndown I determined to return.

I peeped quietly into Lucilla's room. She was asleep. After a word to Zillah, recommending her young mistress to her care, I slipped out. As I crossed the lawn, I heard the garden-gate opened. In a minute more, the man of all others whom I most wanted to see, presented himself before me, in the person of Nugent Dubourg. He had borrowed Oscar's key, and had set off alone for the rectory to tell me what had passed between his brother and himself.

"This is the first stroke of luck that has fallen to me to-day," he said. "I was wondering how I should contrive to speak to you privately. And here you are—accessible and alone. Where is Lucilla? Can we depend on having the garden to ourselves?"

I satisfied him on both those points. He looked sadly pale and worn. Before he opened his lips, I saw that he too had had his mind disturbed, and his patience tried, since I had left him. There was a summer-house at the end of the garden with a view over the breezy solitude of the Downs. Here we established ourselves; and here, in my headlong way, I opened the interview with the one formidable question:—"Who is to tell her of the mistake she has made?"

"Nobody is to tell her."

That answer staggered me at the outset. I looked at Nugent in silent astonishment.

"There is nothing to be surprised at," he said. "Let me put my point of view before you in two words. I have had a serious talk with Oscar—"

Women are proverbially bad listeners—and I am no better than the rest of them. I interrupted him, before he could get any farther.

"I suppose Oscar has told you how the mistake happened?" I said.

"He has no idea how it happened. He owns—when he found himself face to face with her—that his presence of mind completely failed him: he didn't himself know what he was saying at the time. He lost his head; and she lost her patience. Think of his nervous confusion in collision with her nervous irritability—and the result explains itself: nothing could come of it but misapprehension and mistake. I turned the thing over in my mind, after you had left us; and the one course to take that I could see was to accept the position patiently, and to make the best instead of the worst of it. Having reached this conclusion, I settled the matter (as I settle most other difficulties)—by cutting the Gordian knot. I said to Oscar, 'Would it be a relief to your mind to leave her present impression undisturbed until you are married?' You know him—I needn't tell you what his answer was. 'Very well,' I said. 'Dry your eyes and compose yourself. I have begun as Blue Face. As Blue Face I will go on till further notice.' I spare you the description of Oscar's gratitude. I proposed; and he accepted. There is the way out of the difficulty as I see it."

"Your way out of the difficulty is an unworthy way, and a false way," I answered. "I protest against taking that cruel advantage of Lucilla's blindness. I refuse to have anything to do with it."

He opened his case, and took out a cigar.

"Do as you please," he said. "You saw the pitiable state she was in, when she forced herself to speak to me. You saw how her disgust and horror overpowered her at the end. Transfer that disgust and horror to Oscar (with indignation and contempt added in his case); expose him to the result of rousing those feelings in her, before he is fortified by a husband's influence over her mind, and a husband's place in her affections—if you dare. I love the poor fellow; and I daren't. May I smoke?"

I gave him his permission to smoke by a gesture. Before I said anything more to this inscrutable gentleman, I felt the necessity of understanding him—if I could.

There was no difficulty in accounting for his readiness to sacrifice himself in the interests of Oscar's tranquillity. He never did things by halves—he liked dashing at difficulties which would have made other men pause. The same zeal in his brother's service which had saved Oscar's life at the Trial, might well be the zeal that animated him now. The perplexity that I felt was not roused in me by the course that he had taken—but by the language in which he justified himself, and, more still, by his behavior to me while he was speaking. The well-bred brilliant young fellow of my previous experience, had now turned as dogged and as ungracious as a man could be. He waited to hear what I had to say to him next, with a hard defiance and desperation of manner entirely uncalled for by the circumstances, and entirely out of harmony with his character, so far as I had observed it. That there was something lurking under the surface, some inner motive at work in him which he was concealing from his brother and concealing from me, was as plainly visible as the sunshine and shade on the view that I was looking at from the summer-house. But what that something was, or what that inner motive might be, it baffled my utmost sagacity to guess. Not the faintest idea of the terrible secret that he was hiding from me, crossed my mind. Innocent of all suspicion of the truth, there I sat opposite to him, the unconscious witness of that unhappy man's final struggle to be true to the brother whom he loved, and to master the devouring passion that consumed him. So long as Lucilla falsely believed him to be disfigured by the drug, so long the commonest consideration for her tranquillity would, in the estimation of others, excuse and explain his keeping out of her presence. In that separation, lay his last chance of raising an insurmountable barrier between Lucilla and himself. He had already tried uselessly to place another obstacle in the way—he had vainly attempted to hasten the marriage which would have made Lucilla sacred to him as his brother's wife. That effort having failed, there was but one honorable alternative left to him—to keep out of her society, until she was married to Oscar. He had accepted the position in which Oscar had placed him, as the one means of reaching the end in view without exciting suspicion of the truth—and he had encountered, as his reward for the sacrifice, my ignorant protest, my stupid opposition, set as obstacles in his way! There were the motives—the pure, the noble motives—which animated him, as I know them now. There is the right reading of the dogged language that mystified me, of the defiant manner that offended me; interpreted by the one light that I have to guide my pen—the light of later events!

"Well?" he said. "Are we allies, or not? Are you with me or against me?"

I gave up attempting to understand him; and answered that plain question, plainly.

"I don't deny that the consequences of undeceiving her may be serious," I said. "But, for all that, I will have no share in the cruelty of keeping her deceived."

Nugent held up his forefinger, warningly.

"Pause, and reflect, Madame Pratolungo! The mischief that you may do, as matters stand now, may be mischief that you can never repair. It's useless to ask you to alter your mind. I only ask you to wait a little. There is plenty of time before the wedding-day. Something may happen which will spare you the necessity of enlightening Lucilla with your own lips."

"What can happen?" I asked.

"Lucilla may yet see him, as we see him," Nugent answered. "Lucilla's own eyes may discover the truth."

"What! have you not abandoned the mad notion of curing her blindness, yet?"

"I will abandon my notion when the German surgeon tells me it is mad. Not before."

"Have you said anything about it to Oscar?"

"Not a word. I shall say nothing about it to anybody but you, until the German is safe on the shores of England."

"Do you expect him to arrive before the marriage?"

"Certainly! He would have left New York with me, but for one patient who still required his care. No new patients will tempt him to stay in America. His extraordinary success has made his fortune. The ambition of his life is to see England: and he can afford to gratify it. He may be here by the next steamer that reaches Liverpool."

"And when he does come, you mean to bring him to Dimchurch?"

"Yes—unless Lucilla objects to it."

"Suppose Oscar objects? She is resigned to be blind for life. If you disturb that resignation with no useful result, you may make an unhappy woman of her for the rest of her days. In your brother's place, I should object to running that risk."

"My brother is doubly interested in running the risk. I repeat what I have already told you. The physical result will not be the only result, if her sight can be restored. There will be a new mind put into her as well as a new sense. Oscar has everything to dread from this morbid fancy of hers as long as she is blind. Only let her eyes correct her fancy—only let her see him as we see him, and get used to him, as we have got used to him; and Oscar's future with her is safe. Will you leave things as they are for the present, on the chance that the German surgeon may get here before the wedding-day?"

I consented to that; being influenced, in spite of myself, by the remarkable coincidence between what Nugent had just said of Lucilla, and what Lucilla had said to me of herself earlier in the day. It was impossible to deny that Nugent's theory, wild as it sounded, found its confirmation, so far, in Lucilla's view of her own case. Having settled the difference between us in this way, for the time being, I shifted our talk next to the difficult question of Nugent's relations towards Lucilla. "How are you to meet her again," I said, "after the effect you produced on her at the meeting to-day?"

He spoke far more pleasantly in discussing this side of the subject. His language and his manner both improved together.

"If I could have had my own way," he said, "Lucilla would have been relieved, by this time, of all fear of meeting with me again. She would have heard from you, or from Oscar, that business had obliged me to leave Dimchurch."

"Does Oscar object to let you go?"

"He won't hear of my going. I did my best to persuade him—I promised to return for the marriage. Quite useless! 'If you leave me here by myself,' he said, 'to think over the mischief I have done, and the sacrifices I have forced on you—you will break my heart. You don't know what an encouragement your presence is to me; you don't know what a blank you will leave in my life if you go!' I am as weak as Oscar is, when Oscar speaks to me in that way. Against my own convictions, against my own wishes, I yielded. I should have been better away—far, far better away!"

He said those closing words in a tone that startled me. It was nothing less than a tone of despair. How little I understood him then! how well I understand him now! In those melancholy accents, spoke the last of his honor, the last of his truth. Miserable, innocent Lucia! Miserable, guilty Nugent!

"And now you remain at Dimchurch," I resumed, "what are you to do?"

"I must do my best to spare her the nervous suffering which I unwillingly inflicted on her to-day. The morbid repulsion that she feels in my presence is not to be controlled—I can see that plainly. I shall keep out of her way; gradually withdrawing myself, so as not to force my absence on her attention. I shall pay fewer and fewer visits at the rectory, and remain longer and longer at Browndown every day. After they are married——" He suddenly stopped; the words seemed to stick in his throat. He busied himself in relighting his cigar, and took a long time to do it.

"After they are married," I repeated. "What then?"

"When Oscar is married, Oscar will not find my presence indispensable to his happiness. I shall leave Dimchurch."

"You will have to give a reason."

"I shall give the true reason. I can find no studio here big enough for me—as I have told you. And, even if I could find a studio, I should be doing no good, if I remained at Dimchurch. My intellect would contract, my brains would rust, in this remote place. Let Oscar live his quiet married life here. And let me go to the atmosphere that is fitter for me—the atmosphere of London or Paris."

He sighed, and fixed his eyes absently on the open hilly view from the summer-house door.

"It's strange to see you depressed," I said. "Your spirits seemed to be quite inexhaustible on that first evening when you interrupted Mr. Finch over Hamlet."

He threw away the end of his cigar, and laughed bitterly.

"We artists are always in extremes," he said. "What do you think I was wishing just before you spoke to me?"

"I can't guess."

"I was wishing I had never come to Dimchurch!"

Before I could return a word, on my side, Lucilla's voice reached our ears, calling to me from the garden. Nugent instantly sprang to his feet.

"Have we said all we need say?" he asked.

"Yes—for to-day, at any rate."

"For to-day, then—good-bye."

He leapt up; caught the cross-bar of wood over the entrance to the summer-house; and, swinging himself on to the low garden-wall beyond, disappeared in the field on the other side. I answered Lucilla's call, and hastened away to find her. We met on the lawn. She looked wild and pale, as if something had frightened her.

"Anything wrong at the rectory?" I asked.

"Nothing wrong," she answered—"except with Me. The next time I complain of fatigue, don't advise me to go and lie down on my bed."

"Why not? I looked in at you, before I came out here. You were fast asleep—the picture of repose."

"Repose? You never were more mistaken in your life. I was in the agony of a horrid dream."

"You were perfectly quiet when I saw you."

"It must have been after you saw me, then. Let me come and sleep with you to-night. I daren't be by myself, if I dream of it again."

"What did you dream of?"

"I dreamt that I was standing, in my wedding dress, before the altar of a strange church; and that a clergyman whose voice I had never heard before, was marrying me——" She stopped, impatiently waving her hand before her in the air. "Blind as I am," she said, "I see him again now!"

"The bridegroom?"

"Yes."

"Oscar?"

"No."

"Who then?"

"Oscar's brother. Nugent Dubourg."

(Have I mentioned before, that I am sometimes a great fool? If I have not, I beg to mention it now. I burst out laughing.)

"What is there to laugh at?" she asked angrily. "I saw his hideous, discolored face—I am never blind in my dreams! I felt his blue hand put the ring on my finger. Wait! The worst part of it is to come. I married Nugent Dubourg willingly—married him without a thought of my engagement to Oscar. Yes! yes! I know it's only a dream. I can't bear to think of it, for all that. I don't like to be false to Oscar even in a dream. Let us go to him. I want to hear him tell me that he loves me. Come to Browndown. I'm so nervous, I don't like going by myself. Come to Browndown!"

I have another humiliating confession to make—I tried to get off going to Browndown. (So like those unfeeling French people, isn't it?)

But I had my reason too. If I disapproved of the resolution at which Nugent had arrived, I viewed far more unfavorably the selfish weakness on Oscar's part, which had allowed his brother to sacrifice himself. Lucilla's lover had sunk to something very like a despicable character in my estimation. I felt that I might let him see what I thought of him, if I found myself in his company at that moment.

"Considering the object that you have in view, my dear," I said to Lucilla, "do you think you want me at Browndown?"

"Haven't I already told you?" she asked impatiently. "I am so nervous—so completely upset—that I don't feel equal to going out by myself. Have you no sympathy for me? Suppose you had dreamed that you were marrying Nugent instead of Oscar?"

"Ah, bah! what of that? I should only have dreamed that I was marrying the most agreeable man of the two."

"The most agreeable man of the two! There you are again—always unjust to Oscar."

"My love! if you could see for yourself, you would learn to appreciate Nugent's good qualities, as I do."

"I prefer appreciating Oscar's good qualities."

"You are prejudiced, Lucilla."

"So are you!"

"You happen to have met Oscar first."

"That has nothing to do with it."

"Yes! yes! If Nugent had followed us, instead of Oscar; if, of those two charming voices which are both the same, one had spoken instead of the other—"

"I won't hear a word more!"

"Tra-la-la-la! It happens to have been Oscar. Turn it the other way—and Nugent might have been the man.

"Madame Pratolungo, I am not accustomed to be insulted! I have no more to say to you."

With that dignified reply, and with the loveliest color in her face that you ever saw in your life, my darling Lucilla turned her pretty back on me, and set off for Browndown by herself.

Ah, my rash tongue! Ah, my nasty foreign temper! Why did I let her irritate me? I, the elder of the two—why did I not set her an example of self-control? Who can tell? When does a woman know why she does anything? Did Eve know—when Mr. Serpent offered her the apple—why she ate it? not she!

What was to be done now? Two things were to be done. First thing:—To cool myself down. Second thing:—To follow Lucilla, and kiss and make it up.

Either I took some time to cool—or, in the irritation of the moment, Lucilla walked faster than usual. She had got to Browndown before I could overtake her. On opening the house-door, I heard them talking. It would hardly do to disturb them—especially now I was in disgrace. While I was hesitating, and wondering what my next proceeding had better be, my eye was attracted by a letter lying on the hall-table. I looked (one is always inquisitive in those idle moments when one doesn't know what to do)—I looked at the address. The letter was directed to Nugent; and the post-mark was Liverpool.

I drew the inevitable conclusion. The German oculist was in England!



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

He crosses the Rubicon

I WAS still in doubt, whether to enter the room, or to wait outside until she left Browndown to return to the rectory—when Lucilla's keen sense of hearing decided the question which I had been unable to settle for myself. The door of the room opened; and Oscar advanced into the hall.

"Lucilla insisted that she heard somebody outside," he said. "Who could have guessed it was you? Why did you wait in the hall? Come in! come in!"

He held open the door for me; and I went in. Oscar announced me to Lucilla. "It was Madame Pratolungo you heard," he said. She took no notice either of him or of me. A heap of flowers from Oscar's garden lay in her lap. With the help of her clever fingers, she was sorting them to make a nosegay, as quickly and as tastefully as if she had possessed the sense of sight. In all my experience of that charming face, it had never looked so hard as it looked now. Nobody would have recognized her likeness to the Madonna of Raphael's picture. Offended—mortally offended with me—I saw it at a glance.

"I hope you will forgive my intrusion, Lucilla, when you know my motive," I said. "I have followed you here to make my excuses."

"Oh, don't think of making excuses!" she rejoined, giving three-fourths of her attention to the flowers, and one-fourth to me. "It's a pity you took the trouble of coming here. I quite agree with what you said in the garden. Considering the object I had in view at Browndown, I could not possibly expect you to accompany me. True! quite true!"

I kept my temper. Not that I am a patient woman: not that I possess a meek disposition. Very far from it, I regret to say. Nevertheless, I kept my temper—so far.

"I wish to apologize for what I said in the garden," I resumed. "I spoke thoughtlessly, Lucilla. It is impossible that I could intentionally offend you."

I might as well have spoken to one of the chairs. The whole of her attention became absorbed in the breathless interest of making her nosegay.

"Was I offended?" she said, addressing herself to the flowers. "Excessively foolish of me, if I was." She suddenly became conscious of my existence. "You had a perfect right to express your opinion," she said loftily. "Accept my excuses if I appeared to dispute it."

She tossed her pretty head; she showed her brightest color; she tapped her nice little foot briskly on the floor. (Oh, Lucilla! Lucilla!) I still kept my temper. More, by this time (I admit,) for Oscar's sake than for her sake. He looked so distressed, poor fellow—so painfully anxious to interfere, without exactly knowing how.

"My dear Lucilla!" he began. "Surely you might answer Madame Pratolungo——"

She petulantly interrupted him, with another toss of the head—a little higher than the last.

"I don't attempt to answer Madame Pratolungo! I prefer admitting that Madame Pratolungo may have been quite right. I dare say I am ready to fall in love with the first man who comes my way. I dare say—if I had met your brother before I met you—I should have fallen in love with him. Quite likely!"

"Quite likely—as you say,"—answered poor Oscar, humbly. "I am sure I think it very lucky for me, that you didn't meet Nugent first."

She threw her lapful of flowers away from her on the table at which she was sitting. She became perfectly furious with him for taking my side. I permitted myself (the poor child could not see it, remember), the harmless indulgence of a smile.

"You agree with Madame Pratolungo," she said to him viciously. "Madame Pratolungo thinks your brother a much more agreeable man than you."

Humble Oscar shook his head in melancholy acknowledgment of this self-evident fact. "There can be no two opinions about that," he said resignedly.

She stamped her foot on the carpet—and raised quite a little cloud of dust. My lungs are occasionally delicate. I permitted myself another harmless indulgence—indulgence in a slight cough. She heard the second indulgence—and suddenly controlled herself, the instant it reached her ears. I am afraid she took my cough as my commentary on what was going on.

"Come here, Oscar," she said, with a complete change of tone and manner. "Come and sit down by me."

Oscar obeyed.

"Put your arm round my waist."

Oscar looked at me. Having the use of his sight, he was sensible of the absurd side of the demonstration required of him—in the presence of a third person. She, poor soul, strong in her blind insensibility to all shafts of ridicule shot from the eye, cared nothing for the presence of a third person. She repeated her commands, in a tone which said sharply, "Embrace me—I am not to be trifled with."

Oscar timidly put his arm round her waist—with an appealing look at me. She issued another command instantly.

"Say you love me."

Oscar hesitated.

"Say you love me!"

Oscar whispered it.

"Out loud!"

Endurance has its limits: I began to lose my temper. She could not have been more superbly indifferent to my presence, if there had been a cat in the room instead of a lady.

"Permit me to inform you," I said, "that I have not (as you appear to suppose) left the room."

She took no notice. She went on with her commands, rising irrepressibly from one amatory climax to another.

"Give me a kiss!"

Unhappy Oscar—sacrificed between us—blushed. Stop! Don't revel prematurely in the greatest enjoyment a reader has—namely, catching a writer out in a mistake. I have not forgotten that his disfigured complexion would prevent his blush from showing on the surface. I beg to say I saw it under the surface—saw it in his expression: I repeat—he blushed.

I felt it necessary to assert myself for the second time.

"I have only one object in remaining in the room, Miss Finch. I merely wish to know whether you refuse to accept my excuses.

"Oscar! give me a kiss!"

He still hesitated. She threw her arm round his neck. My duty to myself was plain—my duty was to go.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Dubourg," I said—and turned to the door. She heard me cross the room, and called to me to stop. I paused. There was a glass on the wall opposite to me. On the authority of the glass, I beg to mention that I paused in my most becoming manner. Grace tempered with dignity: dignity tempered with grace.

"Madame Pratolungo!"

"Miss Finch?"

"This is the man who is not half so agreeable as his brother. Look!"

She tightened her hold round his neck, and gave him—ostentatiously gave him—the kiss which he was ashamed to give her. I advanced, in contemptuous silence, to the door. My attitude expressed disgust accompanied by sorrow: sorrow, accompanied by disgust.

"Madame Pratolungo!"

I made no answer.

"This is the man whom I should never have loved if I had happened to meet his brother first. Look!"

She put both arms round his neck; and gave him a shower of kisses all in one. I indignantly withdrew. The door had been imperfectly closed when I had entered the room: it was ajar. I pulled it open—and found myself face to face with Nugent Dubourg, standing by the table, with his letter from Liverpool in his hand! He must have certainly heard Lucilla cast my own words back in my teeth—if he had heard no more.

I stopped short; looking at him in silent surprise. He smiled, and held out the open letter to me. Before we could speak, we heard the door of the room closed. Oscar had followed me out (shutting the door behind him) to apologize for Lucilla's behavior to me. He explained what had happened to his brother. Nugent nodded, and tapped his open letter smartly. "Leave me to manage it. I shall give you something better to do than quarreling among yourselves. You will hear what it is directly. In the meantime, I have got a message for our friend at the inn. Gootheridge is on his way here, to speak to me about altering the stable. Run and tell him I have other business on hand, and I can't keep my appointment to-day. Stop! Give him this at the same time, and ask him to leave it at the rectory."

He took one of his visiting cards out of the case, wrote a few lines on it in pencil, and handed it to his brother. Oscar (always ready to go on errands for Nugent) hurried out to meet the landlord. Nugent turned to me.

"The German is in England," he said. "Now I may open my lips."

"At once!" I exclaimed.

"At once. I have put off my own business (as you heard) in favor of this. My friend will be in London to-morrow. I mean to get my authority to consult him to-day, and to start tomorrow for town. Prepare yourself to meet one of the strangest characters you ever set eyes on! You saw me write on my card. It was a message to Mr. Finch, asking him to join us immediately (on important family business) at Browndown. As Lucilla's father, he has a voice in the matter. When Oscar comes back, and when the rector joins us, our domestic privy council will be complete."

He spoke with his customary spirit; he moved with his customary briskness—he had become quite himself again, since I had seen him last.

"I am stagnating in this place," he went on, seeing that I noticed the change in him. "It puts me in spirits again, having something to do. I am not like Oscar—I must have action to stir my blood—action to keep me from fretting over my anxieties. How do you think I found the witness to my brother's innocence at the Trial? In that way. I said to myself, 'I shall go mad if I don't do something.' I did something—and saved Oscar. I am going to do something again. Mark my words! Now I am stirring in it, Lucilla will recover her sight."

"This is a serious matter," I said. "Pray give it serious consideration."

"Consideration?" he repeated. "I hate the word. I always decide on the instant. If I am wrong in my view of Lucilla's case, consideration is of no earthly use. If I am right, every day's delay is a day of sight lost to the blind. I'll wait for Oscar and Mr. Finch; and then I'll open the business. Why are we talking in the hall? Come in!"

He led the way to the sitting-room. I had a new interest, now, in going back. Still, Lucilla's behavior hung on my mind. Suppose she treated me with renewed coldness and keener contempt? I remained standing at the table in the hall. Nugent looked back at me, over his shoulder.

"Nonsense!" he said. "I'll set things right. It's beneath a woman like you to take notice of what a girl says in a pet. Come in!"

I doubt if I should have yielded to please any other living man. But, there is no denying it, some people have a magnetic attracting power over others. Nugent had that power over me. Against my own will—for I was really hurt and offended by her usage of me—I went back with him into the room.

Lucilla was still sitting in the place which she had occupied when I withdrew. On hearing the door open, and a man's footsteps entering, she of course assumed that the man was Oscar. She had penetrated his object in leaving her to follow me out, and it had not improved her temper.

"Oh?" she said. "You have come back at last? I thought you had offered yourself as Madame Pratolungo's escort to the rectory." She stopped, with a sudden frown. Her quick ears had detected my return into the room. "Oscar!" she exclaimed, "what does this mean? Madame Pratolungo and I have nothing more to say to each other. What has she come back for? Why don't you answer? This is infamous! I shall leave the room!"

The utterance of that final threat was followed so rapidly by its execution that, before Nugent (standing between her and the door) could get out of her way, she came in violent contact with him. She instantly caught him by the arm, and shook him angrily. "What does your silence mean? Is it at Madame Pratolungo's instigation that you are insulting me?"

I had just opened my lips to make one more attempt at reconciliation, by saying some pacifying words to her—when she planted that last sting in me. French flesh and blood (whatever English flesh and blood might have done) could bear no more. I silently turned my back on her, in a rage.

At the same moment, Nugent's eyes brightened as if a new idea had struck him. He gave me one significant look—and answered her in his brother's character. Whether he was possessed at the moment by some demon of mischief; or whether he had the idea of trying to make Oscar's peace for him, before Oscar returned—was more than I could say at the time. I ought to have stopped it—I know. But my temper was in a flame. I was as spiteful as a cat and as fierce as a bear. I said to myself (in your English idiom), She wants taking down a peg; quite right, Mr. Nugent; do it. Shocking! shameful! no words are bad enough for me: give it me well. Ah, Heaven! what is a human being in a rage? On my sacred word of honor, nothing but a human beast! The next time it happens to You, look at yourself in the glass; and you will find your soul gone out of you at your face, and nothing left but an animal—and a bad, a villainous bad animal too!

"You ask what my silence means?" said Nugent.

He had only to model his articulation on his brother's slower manner of speaking as distinguished from his own, to be his brother himself. In saying those few first words, he did it so dexterously that I could have sworn—if I had not seen him standing before me—Oscar was in the room.

"Yes," she said, "I ask that."

"I am silent," he answered, "because I am waiting."

"What are you waiting for?"

"To hear you make your apologies to Madame Pratolungo."

She started back a step. Submissive Oscar was taking a peremptory tone with her for the first time in his life. Submissive Oscar, instead of giving her time to speak, sternly went on.

"Madame Pratolungo has made her excuses to you. You ought to receive them; you ought to reciprocate them. It is distressing to see you and hear you. You are behaving ungratefully to your best friend."

She raised her face, she raised her hands, in blank amazement: she looked as if she distrusted her own ears.

"Oscar!" she exclaimed.

"Here I am," said Oscar, opening the door at the same moment.

She turned like lightning towards the place from which he had spoken. She detected the deception which Nugent had practiced on her, with a cry of indignation that rang through the room.

Oscar ran to her in alarm. She thrust him back violently.

"A trick!" she cried. "A mean, vile, cowardly trick played upon my blindness! Oscar! your brother has been imitating you; your brother has been speaking to me in your voice. And that woman who calls herself my friend—that woman stood by and heard him, and never told me. She encouraged it: she enjoyed it. The wretches! take me away from them. They are capable of any deceit. She always hated you, dear, from the first—she took up with your brother the moment he came here. When you marry me, it mustn't be at Dimchurch; it must be in some place they don't know of. There is a conspiracy between them against you and against me. Beware of them! beware of them! She said I should have fallen in love with your brother, if I had met him first. There is a deeper meaning in that, my love, than you can see. It means that they will part us if they can. Ha! I hear somebody moving! Has he changed places with you? Is it you whom I am speaking to now? Oh, my blindness! my blindness! Oh, God, of all your creatures, the most helpless, the most miserable, is the creature who can't see!"

I never heard anything in all my life so pitiable and so dreadful as the frantic suspicion and misery which tore their way out from her, in those words. She cut me to the heart. I had spoken rashly—I had behaved badly—but had I deserved this? No! no! no! I had not deserved it. I threw myself into a chair, and burst out crying. My tears scalded me; my sobs choked me. If I had had poison in my hand, I would have drunk it—I was so furious and so wretched: so hurt in my honor, so wounded at my heart.

The only voice that answered her was Nugent's. Reckless what the consequences might be—speaking, in his own proper person, from the opposite end of the room—he asked the all-important question which no human being had ever put to her yet.

"Are you sure, Lucilla, that you are blind for life?"

A dead silence followed the utterance of those words.

I brushed away the tears from my eyes, and looked up.

Oscar had been—as I supposed—holding her in his arms, silently soothing her, when his brother spoke. At the moment when I saw her, she had just detached herself from him. She advanced a step, towards the part of the room in which Nugent stood—and stopped, with her face turned towards him. Every faculty in her seemed to be suspended by the silent passage into her mind of the new idea that he had called up. Through childhood, girlhood, womanhood—never once, waking or dreaming, had the prospect of restoration to sight presented itself within her range of contemplation, until now. Not a trace was left in her countenance of the indignation which Nugent had roused in her, hardly more than a moment since. Not a sign appeared indicating a return of the nervous suffering which the sense of his presence had inflicted on her, earlier in the day. The one emotion in possession of her was astonishment—astonishment that had struck her dumb; astonishment that waited, helplessly and mechanically, to hear more.

I observed Oscar, next. His eyes were fixed on Lucilla—absorbed in watching her. He spoke to Nugent, without looking at him; animated, as it seemed, by a vague fear for Lucilla, which was slowly developing into a vague fear for himself.

"Mind what you are doing!" he said. "Look at her, Nugent—look at her."

Nugent approached his brother, circuitously, so as to place Oscar between Lucilla and himself.

"Have I offended you?" he asked.

Oscar looked at him in surprise. "Offended with you," he answered, "after what you have forgiven, and what you have suffered, for my sake?"

"Still," persisted the other, "there is something wrong."

"I am startled, Nugent."

"Startled—by what?"

"By the question you have just put to Lucilla."

"You will understand me, and she will understand me, directly."

While those words were passing between the brothers, my attention remained fixed on Lucilla. Her head had turned slowly towards the new position which Nugent occupied when he spoke to Oscar. With this exception, no other movement had escaped her. No sense of what the two men were saying to each other seemed to have entered her mind. To all appearance she had heard nothing, since Nugent had started the first doubt in her whether she was blind for life.

"Speak to her," I said. "For God's sake, don't keep her in suspense, now!"

Nugent spoke.

"You have had reason to be offended with me, Lucilla. Let me, if I can, give you reason to be grateful to me, before I have done. When I was in New York, I became acquainted with a German surgeon, who had made a reputation and a fortune in America by his skill in treating diseases of the eye. He had been especially successful in curing cases of blindness given up as hopeless by other surgeons. I mentioned your case to him. He could say nothing positively (as a matter of course) without examining you. All he could do was to place his services at my disposal, when he came to England. I for one, Lucilla, decline to consider you blind for life, until this skillful man sees no more hope for you than the English surgeons have seen. If there is the faintest chance still left of restoring your sight, his is, I firmly believe, the one hand that can do it. He is now in England. Say the word—and I will bring him to Dimchurch."

She slowly lifted her hands to her head, and held it as if she was holding her reason in its place. Her color changed from pale to red—from red to pale once more. She drew a long, deep, heavy breath—and dropped her hands again, recovering from the shock. The change that followed, held us all three breathless. It was beautiful to see her. It was awful to see her. A mute ecstasy of hope transfigured her face; a heavenly smile played serenely on her lips. She was among us, and yet apart from us. In the still light of evening, shining in on her from the window, she stood absorbed in her own rapture—the silent creature of another sphere! There was a moment when she overcame me with admiration, and another moment when she overcame me with fear. Both the men felt it. Both signed to me to speak to her first.

I advanced a few steps. I tried to consider with myself what I should say. It was useless. I could neither think nor speak. I could only look at her. I could only say, nervously—

"Lucilla!"

She came back to the world—she came back to us—with a little start, and a faint flush of color in her cheeks. She turned herself towards the place from which I had spoken, and whispered——

"Come!"

In a moment, my arms were round her. Her head sank on my bosom. We were reconciled without a word. We were friends again, sisters again, in an instant.

"Have I been fainting? have I been sleeping?" she said to me in low, bewildered tones. "Am I just awake? Is this Browndown?" She suddenly lifted her head. "Nugent! are you there?"

"Yes."

She gently withdrew herself from me, and approached Nugent.

"Did you speak to me just now? Was it you who put the doubt into my mind, whether I am really doomed to be blind for life? Surely, I have not fancied it? Surely, you said the man was coming, and the time coming?" Her voice suddenly rose. "The man who may cure me! the time when I may see!"

"I said it, Lucilla. I meant it, Lucilla."

"Oscar! Oscar!! Oscar!!!"

I stepped forward to lead her to him. Nugent touched me, and pointed to Oscar, as I took her hand. He was standing before the glass—with an expression of despair which I see again while I write these lines—he was standing close to the glass; looking in silence at the hideous reflection of his face. In sheer pity, I hesitated to take her to him. She stepped forward, and, stretching out her hand, touched his shoulder. The reflection of her charming face appeared behind his face in the glass. She raised herself on tiptoe, with both hands on him, and said, "The time is coming, my darling, when I may see You!"

With a cry of joy, she drew his face to her, and kissed him on the forehead. His head fell on his breast when she released it: he covered his face with his hands, and stifled, for the moment, all outward expression of the pang that wrung him. I drew her rapidly away, before her quick sensibilities had time to warn her that something was wrong. Even as it was, she resisted me. Even as it was, she asked suspiciously, "Why do you take me away from him?"

What excuse could I make? I was at my wits' end.

She repeated the question. For once Fortune favored us. A timely knock at the door stopped her just as she was trying to release herself from me. "Somebody coming in," I said. The servant entered, as I spoke, with a letter from the rectory.



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH

Parliamentary Summary

OH, the welcome interruption! After the agitation that we had suffered, we all stood equally in need of some such relief as this. It was absolutely a luxury to fall back again into the common-place daily routine of life. I asked to whom the letter was addressed? Nugent answered, "The letter is addressed to me; and the writer is Mr. Finch."

Having read the letter, he turned to Lucilla.

"I sent a message to your father, asking him to join us here," he said. "Mr. Finch writes back to say that his duties keep him at home, and to suggest that the rectory is the fitter place for the discussion of family matters. Have you any objection to return to the house? And do you mind going on first with Madame Pratolungo?"

Lucilla's quick suspicion was instantly aroused.

"Why not with Oscar?" she asked.

"Your father's note suggests to me," replied Nugent, "that he is a little hurt at the short notice I gave him of our discussion here. I thought—if you and Madame Pratolungo went on first—that you might make our peace with the rector, and assure him that we meant no disrespect, before Oscar and I appeared. Don't you think yourself you would make it easier for us, if you did that?"

Having contrived in this dexterous way to separate Oscar and Lucilla, and to gain time for composing and fortifying his brother before they met again, Nugent opened the door for us to go out. Lucilla and I left the twins together, in the modest little room which had witnessed a scene alike memorable to all of us for its interest at the time, and for the results which were to come of it in the future.

Half an hour later, we were all assembled at the rectory.

Our adjourned debate—excepting one small suggestion emanating from myself—was a debate which led to nothing. It may be truly described as resolving itself into the delivery of an Oration by Mr. Finch. Subject, the assertion of Mr. Finch's dignity.

On this occasion (having matters of more importance on hand) I take the liberty of cutting the reverend gentleman's speech by the pattern of the reverend gentleman's stature. Short in figure, the rector shall be here, for the first time in his life, short in language too.

Reverend Finch rose, and said—he objected to everything. To receiving a message on a card instead of a proper note. To being expected to present himself at Browndown at a moment's notice. To being the last person informed (instead of the first) of Mr. Nugent Dubourg's exaggerated and absurd view of the case of his afflicted child. To the German surgeon, as being certainly a foreigner and a stranger, and possibly a quack. To the slur implied on British Surgery by bringing the foreigner to Dimchurch. To the expense involved in the same proceeding. Finally to the whole scope and object of Mr. Nugent Dubourg's proposal, which had for its origin rebellion against the decrees of an all-wise Providence, and for its result the disturbance of his daughter's mind—"under My influence, sir, a mind in a state of Christian resignation: under Your influence, a mind in a state of infidel revolt." With those concluding remarks, the reverend gentleman sat down—and paused for a reply.

A remarkable result followed, which might be profitably permitted to take place in some other Parliaments. Nobody replied.

Mr. Nugent Dubourg rose—no! sat—and said, he declined to take any part in the proceedings. He was quite ready to wait, until the end justified the means which he proposed to employ. For the rest, his conscience was at ease; and he was entirely at Miss Finch's service.

Mr. Oscar Dubourg, sitting hidden from notice behind his brother, followed his brother's example. The decision in the matter under discussion rested with Miss Finch alone. He had no opinion of his own to offer on it.

Miss Finch herself, appealed to next:—Had but one reply to give. With all possible respect for her father, she ventured to think that neither he nor any one, possessing the sense of vision, could quite enter into her feelings as the circumstances then were. If there really was any chance of her recovering her sight, the least she could do would be to give that chance a fair trial. She entreated Mr. Nugent Dubourg not to lose one unnecessary moment in bringing the German surgeon to Dimchurch.

Mrs. Finch, called upon next. Spoke after some little delay, caused by the loss of her pocket-handkerchief. Would not presume to differ in opinion with her husband, whom she had never yet known to be otherwise than perfectly right about everything. But, if the German surgeon did come, and if Mr. Finch saw no objection to it, she would much like to consult him (gratis, if possible) on the subject of "baby's eyes." Mrs. Finch was proceeding to explain that there was happily nothing the matter, that she could see, with the infant's eyes at that particular moment, and that she merely wished to take a skilled medical opinion, in the event of something happening on some future occasion—when she was called to order by Mr. Finch. The reverend gentleman, at the same time, appealed to Madame Pratolungo to close the debate by giving frank expression to her own opinion.

Madame Pratolungo, speaking in conclusion, remarked:—

That the question of consulting the German surgeon appeared (after what had fallen from Miss Finch) to be a question which had passed beyond the range of any expression of feeling on the part of other persons. That she proposed, accordingly, to look, beyond the consultation, at the results which might follow it. That, contemplating these possible results, she held very strong views of her own, and would proceed to give frank expression to them as follows. That in her opinion, the proposed investigation of the chances which might exist of restoring Miss Finch's sight, involved consequences far too serious to be trusted to the decision of any one man, no matter how skillful or how famous he might be. That, in pursuance of this view, she begged to suggest (1) the association of an eminent English oculist with the eminent German oculist; (2) an examination of Miss Finch's case by both the professional gentlemen, consulting on it together; and (3) a full statement of the opinions at which they might respectively arrive, to be laid before the meeting now assembled, and to become the subject of a renewed discussion before any decisive measures were taken.

Lastly, that this proposal be now submitted, in the form of a resolution, and forthwith (if necessary) put to the vote.

Resolution, as above, put to the vote.

Majority—Ayes.

Miss Finch. Mr. Nugent Dubourg. Mr. Oscar Dubourg. Madame Pratolungo.

Minority—Noes.

No (on the score of expense), Mr. Finch. No (because Mr. F. says No), Mrs. Finch.

Resolution carried by a majority of two. Debate adjourned to a day to be hereafter decided on.

By the first train the next morning, Nugent Dubourg started for London.

At luncheon, the same day, a telegram arrived, reporting his proceedings in the following terms:—

"I have seen my friend. He is at our service. He is also quite willing to consult with any English oculist whom we may choose. I am just off to find the man. Expect a second telegram later in the day."

The second telegram reached us in the evening, and ran thus:—

"Everything is settled. The German oculist and the English oculist leave London with me, by the twelve-forty train to-morrow afternoon."

After reading this telegram to Lucilla, I sent it to Oscar at Browndown. Judge for yourself how he slept, and how we slept, that night!



CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH

Herr Grosse

SEVERAL circumstances deserving to be mentioned here, took place in the early part of the day on which we expected the visit of the two oculists. I have all the will to relate them—but the capacity to do it completely fails me.

When I look back at that eventful morning, I recall a scene of confusion and suspense, the bare recollection of which seems to upset my mind again, even at this distance of time. Things and persons all blend distractedly one with another. I see the charming figure of my blind Lucilla, robed in rose-color and white, flitting hither and thither, in the house and out of the house—at one time mad with impatience for the arrival of the surgeons; at another, shuddering with apprehension of the coming ordeal, and the coming disappointment which might follow. A moment more—and, just as my mind has seized it, the fair figure melts and merges into the miserable apparition of Oscar; hovering and hesitating between Browndown and the rectory; painfully conscious of the new complications introduced into his position towards Lucilla by the new state of things; and yet not man enough, even yet, to seize the opportunity, and set himself right. Another moment passes, and a new figure—a little strutting consequential figure forces its way into the foreground, before I am ready for it. I hear a big voice booming in my ear, with big language to correspond. "No, Madame Pratolungo, nothing will induce me to sanction by my presence this insane medical consultation, this extravagant and profane attempt to reverse the decrees of an all-wise Providence by purely human means. My foot is down—I use the language of the people, observe, to impress it the more strongly on your mind—My FOOT is down!" Another moment yet, and Finch and Finch's Foot disappear over my mental horizon just as my eye has caught them. Damp Mrs. Finch, and the baby whose everlasting programme is suction and sleep, take the vacant place. Mrs. Finch pledges me with watery earnestness to secrecy; and then confides her intention of escaping her husband's supervision if she can, and bringing British surgery and German surgery to bear both together (gratis) on baby's eyes. Conceive these persons all twisting and turning in the convolutions of my brains, as if those brains were a labyrinth; with the sayings and doings of one, confusing themselves with the sayings and doings of the other—with a thin stream of my own private anxieties (comprehending luncheon on a side-table for the doctors) trickling at intervals through it all—and you will not wonder if I take a jump, like a sheep, over some six hours of precious time, and present my solitary self to your eye, posted alone in the sitting-room to receive the council of surgeons on its arrival at the house. I had but two consolations to sustain me.

First, a Mayonnaise of chicken of my own making on the luncheon-table, which, as a work of Art, was simply adorable—I say no more. Secondly, my green silk dress, trimmed with my mother's famous lace—another work of Art, equally adorable with the first. Whether I looked at the luncheon-table, or whether I looked in the glass, I could feel that I worthily asserted my nation; I could say to myself, Even in this remote corner of the earth, the pilgrim of civilization searching for the elegant luxuries of life, looks and sees—France supreme!



The clock chimed the quarter past three. Lucilla, wearying, for the hundredth time of waiting in her own room, put her head in at the door, and still repeated the never-changing question—"No signs of them yet?"

"None, my love."

"Oh, how much longer will they keep us waiting!"

"Patience, Lucilla—patience!"

She disappeared again, with a weary sigh. Five minutes more passed; and old Zillah peeped into the room next.

"Here they are, ma'am, in a chaise at the gate!"

I shook out the skirts of my green silk, I cast a last inspiriting glance at the Mayonnaise. Nugent's cheerful voice reached me from the garden, conducting the strangers. "This way, gentlemen—follow me." A pause. Steps outside. The door opened. Nugent brought them in.

Herr Grosse, from America. Mr. Sebright of London.

The German gave a little start when my name was mentioned. The Englishman remained perfectly unaffected by it. Herr Grosse had heard of my glorious Pratolungo. Mr. Sebright was barbarously ignorant of his existence. I shall describe Herr Grosse first, and shall take the greatest pains with him.

A squat, broad, sturdy body, waddling on a pair of short bandy legs; slovenly, shabby, unbrushed clothes; a big square bilious-yellow face, surmounted by a mop of thick iron-grey hair; dark beetle-brows; a pair of staring, fierce, black, goggle eyes, with huge circular spectacles standing up like fortifications in front of them; a shaggy beard and mustache of mixed black, white, and grey; a prodigious cameo ring on the forefinger of one hairy hand; the other hand always in and out of a deep silver snuff-box like a small tea-caddy; a rough rasping voice; a diabolically humourous smile; a curtly confident way of speaking; resolution, independence, power, expressed all over him from head to foot—there is the portrait of the man who held in his hands (if Nugent was to be trusted) the restoration of Lucilla's sight!

The English oculist was as unlike his German colleague as it is possible for one human being to be to another.

Mr. Sebright was slim and spare, and scrupulously (painfully) clean and neat. His smooth light hair was carefully parted; his well-shaved face exhibited two little crisp morsels of whisker about two inches long, and no hair more. His decent black clothes were perfectly made; he wore no ornaments, not even a watch-chain; he moved deliberately, he spoke gravely and quietly; disciplined attention looked coldly at you out of his light grey eyes; and said, Here I am if you want me, in every movement of his thin finely-cut lips. A thoroughly capable man, beyond all doubt—but defend me from accidentally sitting next to him at dinner, or traveling with him for my only companion on a long journey!

I received these distinguished persons with my best grace. Herr Grosse complimented me in return on my illustrious name, and shook hands. Mr. Sebright said it was a beautiful day, and bowed. The German, the moment he was at liberty to look about him, looked at the luncheon-table. The Englishman looked out of window.

"Will you take some refreshment, gentlemen?"

Herr Grosse nodded his shock head in high approval. His wild eyes glared greedily at the Mayonnaise through his prodigious spectacles. "Aha! I like that," said the illustrious surgeon, pointing at the dish with his ringed forefinger. "You know how to make him—you make him with creams. Is he chickens or lobsters? I like lobsters best, but chickens is goot too. The garnish is lofely—anchovy, olive, beetroots; brown, green, red, on a fat white sauce! This I call a heavenly dish. He is nice-cool in two different ways; nice-cool, to the eye, nice-cool to the taste! Soh! we will break into his inside. Madame Pratolungo, you shall begin. Here goes for the liver-wings!"

In this extraordinary English—turning words in the singular into words in the plural, and banishing from the British vocabulary the copulative conjunction "and"—Herr Grosse announced his readiness to sit down to lunch. He was politely recalled from the Mayonnaise to the patient by his discreet English colleague.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Sebright. "Would it not be advisable to see the young lady, before we do anything else? I am obliged to return to London by the next train."

Herr Grosse-with a fork in one hand and a spoon in the other, and a napkin tied round his neck—stared piteously; shook his shock head; and turned his back on the Mayonnaise, with a heavy heart at parting.

"Goot. We shall do our works first: then eat our lunches afterwards. Where is the patients? Come-begin-begin!" He removed the napkin, blew a sigh (there is no other way of expressing it)—and plunged his finger and thumb into his tea-caddy snuff-box. "Where is the patients?" he repeated irritably. "Why is she not close-handy in here?"

"She is waiting in the next room," I said. "I will bring her in directly. You will make allowances for her, gentlemen, I am sure, if you find her a little nervous?" I added, looking at both the oculists. Silent Mr. Sebright bowed. Herr Grosse grinned diabolically, and said, "Make your mind easy, my goot creature. I am not such a brutes as I look!"

"Where is Oscar?" asked Nugent, as I passed him on my way to Lucilla's room.

"After altering his mind a dozen times at least," I replied, "he has decided on not being present at the examination."

I had barely said the words before the door opened, and Oscar entered the room. He had altered his mind for the thirteenth time—and here he was as the result of it!

Herr Grosse burst out with an exclamation in his own language, at the sight of Oscar's face. "Ach, Gott!" he exclaimed, "he has been taking Nitrates of Silvers. His complexions is spoilt. Poor boys! poor boys!" He shook his shaggy head—turned—and spat compassionately into a corner of the room. Oscar looked offended; Mr. Sebright looked disgusted; Nugent thoroughly enjoyed it. I left the room and closed the door behind me.

I had not taken two steps in the corridor when I heard the door opened again. Looking back directly, I found myself, to my amazement, face to face with Herr Grosse—staring ferociously at me through his spectacles, and offering me his arm!

"Hosh!" said the famous oculist in a heavy whisper. "Say nothing to nobody. I am come to help you."

"To help me?" I repeated.

Herr Grosse nodded vehemently—so vehemently that his prodigious spectacles hopped up and down on his nose.

"What did you tell me just now?" he asked. "You told me the patient was nervous. Goot! I am come to go with you to the patients, and help you to fetch her. Soh! soh! I am not such a brutes as I look. Come-begin-begin! Where is she?"

I hesitated for a moment about introducing this remarkable ambassador into Lucilla's bedroom. One look at him decided me. After all, he was a doctor,—and such an ugly one! I took his arm.

We went together into Lucilla's room. She started up from the sofa on which she was reclining when she heard the strange footsteps entering, side by side with mine.

"Who is it?" she cried.

"It is me, my dears," said Herr Grosse. "Ach, Gott! what a pretty girls! Here is jost the complexions I like-nice-fair! nice-fair! I am come to see what I can do, my pretty Miss, for this eyes of yours. If I can let the light in on you—hey! you will lofe me, won't you? You will kees even an ugly Germans like me. Soh! Come under my arm. We will go back into the odder rooms. There is anodder one waiting to let the light in too—Mr. Sebrights. Two surgeon-optic to one pretty Miss—English surgeon-optic; German surgeon-optic—hey! between us we shall cure this nice girls. Madame Pratolungo, here is my odder arms at your service. Hey! what? You look at my coatsleeve. He is shabby-greasy—I am ashamed of him. No matter. You have got Mr. Sebrights to look at in the odder rooms. He is spick-span, beautiful-new. Come! Forwards! Marsch!"

Nugent, waiting in the corridor, threw the door open for us. "Isn't he delightful?" Nugent whispered behind me, pointing to his friend. Escorted by Herr Grosse, we made a magnificent entry into the room. Our German doctor had done Lucilla good already. The examination was relieved of all its embarrassments and its terrors at the outset. Herr Grosse had made her laugh—Herr Grosse had set her completely at her ease.

Mr. Sebright and Oscar were talking together in a perfectly friendly way when we returned to the sitting-room. The reserved Englishman appeared to have his attraction for the shy Oscar. Even Mr. Sebright was struck by Lucilla; his cold face lit up with interest when he was presented to her. He placed a chair for her in front of the window. There was a warmth in his tone which I had not heard yet, when he begged her to be seated in that place. She took the chair. Mr. Sebright thereupon drew back, and bowed to Herr Grosse, with a courteous wave of his hand towards Lucilla which signified, "You first!"

Herr Grosse met this advance with a counter-wave of the hand, and a vehement shake of his shock-head, which signified, "I couldn't think of such a thing!"

"Pardon me," entreated Mr. Sebright. "As my senior, as a visitor to England, as a master in our art."

Herr Grosse responded by regaling himself with three pinches of snuff in rapid succession—a pinch as senior, a pinch as visitor to England, a pinch as master in the art. An awful pause followed. Neither of the surgeons would take precedence of the other. Nugent interfered.

"Miss Finch is waiting," he said. "Come, Grosse, you were first presented to her. You examine her first."

Herr Grosse took Nugent's ear between his finger and thumb, and gave it a good-humoured pinch. "You clever boys!" he said. "You have the right word always at the tips of your tongue." He waddled to Lucilla's chair; and stopped short with a scandalized look. Oscar was bending over her, and whispering to her with her hand in his. "Hey! what?" cried Herr Grosse. "Is this a third surgeon-optic? What, sir! you treat young Miss's eyes by taking hold of young Miss's hand? You are a Quack. Get out!" Oscar withdrew—not very graciously. Herr Grosse took a chair in front of Lucilla, and removed his spectacles. As a short-sighted man, he had necessarily excellent eyes for all objects which were sufficiently near to him. He bent forward, with his face close to Lucilla's, and parted her eyelids alternately with his finger and thumb; peering attentively, first into one eye, then into the other.

It was a moment of breathless interest. Who could say what an influence on her future life might be exercised by this quaint kindly uncouth little foreign man? How anxiously we watched those shaggy eyebrows, those piercing goggle eyes! And, oh, heavens, how disappointed we were at the first result! Lucilla suddenly gave a little irrepressible shudder of disgust. Herr Grosse drew back from her, and glared at her benignantly with his diabolical smile.

"Aha!" he said. "I see what it is. I snuff, I smoke, I reek of tobaccos. The pretty Miss smells me. She says in her inmost heart—Ach Gott, how he stink!"

Lucilla burst into a fit of laughter. Herr Grosse, unaffectedly amused on his side, grinned with delight, and snatched her handkerchief out of her apron-pocket. "Gif me scents," said this excellent German. "I shall stop up her nose with her handkerchiefs. So she will not smell my tobacco-stinks—all will be nice-right again—we shall go on." I gave him some lavender-water from a scent-bottle on the table. He gravely drenched the handkerchief with it, and popped it suddenly on Lucilla's nose. "Hold him there, Miss. You cannot for the life of you smell Grosse now. Goot! We may go on again."

He took a magnifying glass out of his waistcoat pocket, and waited till Lucilla had fairly exhausted herself with laughing. Then the examination—so cruelly grotesque in itself, so terribly serious in the issues which it involved—resumed its course: Herr Grosse glaring at his patient through his magnifying glass; Lucilla leaning back in the chair, holding the handkerchief over her nose.

A minute, or more, passed—and the ordeal of the examination came to an end.

Herr Grosse put back his magnifying glass with a grunt which sounded like a grunt of relief, and snatched the handkerchief away from Lucilla.

"Ach! what a nasty smell!" he said, holding the handkerchief to his nose with a grimace of disgust. "Tobaccos is much better than this." He solaced his nostrils, offended by the lavender-water, with a huge pinch of snuff. "Now I am going to talk," he went on. "See! I keep my distance. You don't want your handkerchiefs—you smell me no more."

"Am I blind for life?" said Lucilla. "Pray, pray tell me, sir! Am I blind for life?"

"Will you kees me if I tell you?"

"Oh, do consider how anxious I am! Pray, pray, pray tell me!"

She tried to go down on her knees before him. He held her back firmly and kindly in her chair.

"Now! now! now! you be nice-goot, and tell me this first. When you are out in the garden, taking your little lazy lady's walks on a shiny-sunny day, is it all the same to your eyes as if you were lying in your bed in the middles of the night?"

"No."

"Hah! You know it is nice-light at one time? you know it is horrid-dark at the odder?"

"Yes."

"Then why you ask me if you are blind for life? If you can see as much as that, you are not properly blind at all?"

She clasped her hands, with a low cry of delight. "Oh, where is Oscar?" she said softly. "Where is Oscar?" I looked round for him. He was gone. While his brother and I had been hanging spell-bound over the surgeon's questions and the patient's answers, he must have stolen silently out of the room.

Herr Grosse rose, and vacated the chair in favor of Mr. Sebright. In the ecstasy of the new hope now confirmed in her, Lucilla seemed to be unconscious of the presence of the English oculist, when he took his colleague's place. His grave face looked more serious than ever, as he too produced a magnifying glass from his pocket, and, gently parting the patient's eyelids, entered on the examination of her blindness, in his turn.

The investigation by Mr. Sebright lasted a much longer time than the investigation by Herr Grosse. He pursued it in perfect silence. When he had done he rose without a word, and left Lucilla as he had found her, rapt in the trance of her own happiness—thinking, thinking, thinking of the time when she should open her eyes in the new morning, and see!

"Well?" said Nugent, impatiently addressing Mr. Sebright. "What do you say?"

"I say nothing yet." With that implied reproof to Nugent, he turned to me. "I understand that Miss Finch was blind—or as nearly blind as could be discovered—at a year old?"

"I have always heard so," I replied.

"Is there any person in the house—parent, or relative, or servant—who can speak to the symptoms noticed when she was an infant?"

I rang the bell for Zillah. "Her mother is dead," I said. "And there are reasons which prevent her father from being present to-day. Her old nurse will be able to give you all the information you want."

Zillah appeared. Mr. Sebright put his questions.

"Were you in the house when Miss Finch was born?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was there anything wrong with her eyes at her birth, or soon afterwards?"

"Nothing, sir."

"How did you know?"

"I knew by seeing her take notice, sir. She used to stare at the candles, and clutch at things that were held before her, as other babies do."

"How did you discover it, when she began to get blind?"

"In the same way, sir. There came a time, poor little thing, when her eyes looked glazed-like, and try her as we might, morning or evening, it was all the same—she noticed nothing."

"Did the blindness come on gradually?"

"Yes, sir—bit by bit, as you may say. Slowly worse and worse one week after another. She was a little better than a year old before we clearly made it out that her sight was gone."

"Was her father's sight, or her mother's sight ever affected in any way?"

"Never, sir, that I heard of."

Mr. Sebright turned to Herr Grosse, sitting at the luncheon-table resignedly contemplating the Mayonnaise. "Do you wish to ask the nurse any questions?" he said.

Herr Grosse shrugged his shoulders, and pointed backwards with his thumb at the place in which Lucilla was sitting.

"Her case is as plain to me as twos and twos make fours. Ach Gott! what do I want with the nurse?" He turned again longingly towards the Mayonnaise. "My fine appetites is going! When shall we lonch?"

Mr. Sebright dismissed Zillah with a frigid inclination of the head. His discouraging manner made me begin to feel a little uneasy. I ventured to ask if he had arrived at a conclusion yet. "Permit me to consult with my colleague before I answer you," said the impenetrable man. I roused Lucilla. She again inquired for Oscar. I said I supposed we should find him in the garden—and so took her out. Nugent followed us. I heard Herr Grosse whisper to him piteously, as we passed the luncheon-table, "For the lofe of Heaven, come back soon, and let us lonch!" We left the ill-assorted pair to their consultation in the sitting-room.



CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST

"Who Shall Decide when Doctors disagree?"

WE had certainly not been more than ten minutes in the garden, when we were startled by an extraordinary outbreak of shouting in broken English, proceeding from the window of the sitting-room. "Hi-hi-hoi! hoi-hi! hoi-hi!" We looked up, and discovered Herr Grosse, frantically waving a huge red silk handkerchief at the window. "Lonch! lonch!" cried the German surgeon. "The consultations is done. Come begin-begin."

Obedient to this peremptory summons, Lucilla, Nugent, and I returned to the sitting-room. We had, as I had foreseen, found Oscar wandering alone in the garden. He had entreated me, by a sign, not to reveal our discovery of him to Lucilla, and had hurried away to hide himself in one of the side-walks. His agitation was pitiable to see. He was totally unfit to be trusted in Lucilla's presence at that anxious moment.

When we had left the oculists together, I had sent Zillah with a little written message to Reverend Finch; entreating him (if it was only for form's sake) to reconsider his resolution, and be present on the all-important occasion to his daughter of the delivery of the medical opinions on her case. At the bottom of the stairs (on our return), my answer was handed to me on a slip of sermon-paper. "Mr. Finch declined to submit a question of principle to any considerations dictated by mere expediency. He desired seriously to remind Madame Pratolungo of what he had already told her. In other words, he would repeat, and he would beg her to remember this time, that his Foot was down."

On re-entering the room, we found the eminent oculists seated as far apart as possible one from the other. Both gentlemen were engaged in reading. Mr. Sebright was reading a book. Herr Grosse was reading the Mayonnaise.

I placed Lucilla close by me, and took her hand. It was as cold as ice. My poor dear trembled pitiably. For her, what moments of unutterable suffering were those moments of suspense, before the surgeons delivered their sentence! I pressed her little cold hand in mine, and whispered "Courage!" Truly I can say it (though I am not usually one of the sentimental sort), my heart bled for her.

"Well, gentlemen," said Nugent, "what is the result? Are you both agreed?"

"No," said Mr. Sebright, putting aside his book.

"No," said Herr Grosse, ogling the Mayonnaise. Lucilla turned her face towards me; her color shifting and changing, her bosom rising and falling more and more rapidly. I whispered to her to compose herself. "One of them, at any rate," I said, "thinks you will recover your sight." She understood me, and became quieter directly. Nugent went on with his questions, addressed to the two oculists.

"What do you differ about?" he asked. "Will you let us hear your opinions?"

The wearisome contest of courtesy was renewed between our medical advisers. Mr. Sebright bowed to Herr Grosse:

"You first." Herr Grosse bowed to Mr. Sebright: "No—you!" My impatience broke through this cruel and ridiculous professional restraint. "Speak both together, gentlemen, if you like!" I said sharply. "Do anything, for God's sake, but keep us in suspense. Is it, or is it not, possible to restore her sight?"

"Yes," said Herr Grosse.

Lucilla sprang to her feet, with a cry of joy.

"No," said Mr. Sebright.

Lucilla dropped back again into her chair, and silently laid her head on my shoulder.

"Are you agreed about the cause of her blindness?" asked Nugent.

"Cataracts is the cause," answered Herr Grosse.

"So far, I agree," said Mr. Sebright. "Cataract is the cause.

"Cataracts is curable," pursued the German.

"I agree again," continued the Englishman—"with a reservation. Cataract is sometimes curable."

"This cataracts is curable!" cried Herr Grosse.

"With all possible deference," said Mr. Sebright, "I dispute that conclusion. The cataract, in Miss Finch's case, is not curable."

"Can you give us your reasons, sir, for saying that?" I inquired.

"My reasons are based on surgical considerations which it requires a professional training to understand," Mr. Sebright replied. "I can only tell you that I am convinced—after the most minute and careful examination—that Miss Finch's sight is irrevocably gone. Any attempt to restore it by an operation, would be, in my opinion, an unwarrantable proceeding. The young lady would not only have the operation to undergo, she would be kept secluded afterwards, for at least six weeks or two months, in a darkened room. During that time, it is needless for me to remind you that she would inevitably form the most confident hope of her restoration to sight. Remembering this, and believing as I do that the sacrifice demanded of her would end in failure, I think it most undesirable to expose our patient to the moral consequences of a disappointment which must seriously try her. She has been resigned from childhood to her blindness. As an honest man, who feels bound to speak out and to speak strongly, I advise you not further to disturb that resignation. I declare it to be, in my opinion, certainly useless, and possibly dangerous, to allow her to be operated on for the restoration of her sight."

In those uncompromising words, the Englishman delivered his opinion.

Lucilla's hand closed fast on mine. "Cruel! cruel!" she whispered to herself angrily. I gave her a little squeeze, recommending patience—and looked in silent expectation (just as Nugent was looking too) at Herr Grosse. The German rose deliberately to his feet, and waddled to the place in which Lucilla and I were sitting together.

"Has goot Mr. Sebrights done?" he asked.

Mr. Sebright only replied by his everlasting never-changing bow.

"Goot! I have now my own word to put in," said Herr Grosse. "It shall be one little word—no more. With my best compliments to Mr. Sebrights, I set up against what he only thinks, what I—Grosse—with these hands of mine have done. The cataracts of Miss there, is a cataracts that I have cut into before, a cataracts that I have cured before. Now look!" He suddenly wheeled round to Lucilla, tucked up his cuffs, laid a forefinger of each hand on either side of her forehead, and softly turned down her eyelids with his two big thumbs. "I pledge you my word as surgeon-optic," he resumed, "my knife shall let the light in here. This lofable-nice girls shall be more lofable-nicer than ever. My pretty Feench must be first in her best goot health. She must next gif me my own ways with her—and then one, two, three—ping! my pretty Feench shall see!" He lifted Lucilla's eyelids again as he said the last word—glared fiercely at her through his spectacles—gave her the loudest kiss, on the forehead, that I ever heard given in my life—laughed till the room rang again—and returned to his post as sentinel on guard over the Mayonnaise. "Now," cried Herr Grosse cheerfully, "the talkings is all done. Gott be thanked, the eatings may begin!"

Lucilla left her chair for the second time.

"Herr Grosse," she said, "where are you?"

"Here, my dears!"

She crossed the room to the table at which he was sitting, already occupied in carving his favorite dish.

"Did you say you must use a knife to make me see?" she asked quite calmly.

"Yes, yes. Don't you be frightened of that. Not much pains to bear—not much pains."

She tapped him smartly on the shoulder with her hand.

"Get up, Herr Grosse," she said. "If you have your knife about you, here am I—do it at once!"

Nugent started. Mr. Sebright started. Her daring amazed them both. As for me, I am the greatest coward living, in the matter of surgical operations performed on myself or on others. Lucilla terrified me. I ran headlong across the room to her. I was even fool enough to scream.

Before I could reach her, Herr Grosse had risen, obedient to command, with a choice morsel of chicken on the end of his fork. "You charming little fools," he said, "I don't cut into cataracts in such a hurry as that. I perform but one operations on you to-day. It is this!" He unceremoniously popped the morsel of chicken into Lucilla's mouth. "Aha! Bite him well. He is nice-goot! Now then! Sit down all of you. Lonch! lonch!"

He was irresistible. We all sat down at table.

The rest of us ate. Herr Grosse gobbled. From Mayonnaise to marmalade tart. From marmalade tart back again to Mayonnaise. From Mayonnaise, forward again to ham sandwiches and blancmange; and then back once more (on the word of an honest woman) to Mayonnaise! His drinking was on the same scale as his eating. Beer, wine, brandy—nothing came amiss to him; he mixed them all. As for the lighter elements in the feast—the almonds and raisins, the preserved ginger and the crystallized fruits, he ate them as accompaniments to everything. A dish of olives especially won his favor. He plunged both hands into it, and deposited his fists-full of olives in the pockets of his trousers. "In this ways," he explained, "I shall trouble nobody to pass the dish—I shall have by me continually all the olives that I want." When he could eat and drink no more, he rolled up his napkin into a ball, and became devoutly thankful. "How goot of Gott," he remarked, "when he invented the worlds to invent eatings and drinkings too! Ah!" sighed Herr Grosse, gently laying his outspread fingers on the pit of his stomach, "what immense happiness there is in This!"

Mr. Sebright looked at his watch.

"If there is anything more to be said on the question of the operation," he announced, "it must be said at once. We have barely five minutes more to spare. You have heard my opinion. I hold to it."

Herr Grosse took a pinch of snuff. "I also," he said, "hold to mine."

Lucilla turned towards the place from which Mr. Sebright had spoken.

"I am obliged to you, sir, for your opinion," she said, very quietly and firmly. "I am determined to try the operation. If it does fail, it will only leave me what I am now. If it succeeds, it gives me a new life. I will bear anything, and risk anything, on the chance that I may see."

So, she announced her decision. In those memorable words, she cleared the way for the coming Event in her life and in our lives, which it is the purpose of these pages to record.

Mr. Sebright answered her, in Mr. Sebright's discreet way.

"I cannot affect to be surprised at your decision," he said. "However sincerely I may regret it, I admit that it is the natural decision, in your case."

Lucilla addressed herself next to Herr Grosse.

"Choose your own day," she said. "The sooner, the better. To-morrow, if you can."

"Answer me one little thing, Miss," rejoined the German, with a sudden gravity of tone and manner which was quite new in our experience of him. "Do you mean what you say?"

She answered him gravely on her side. "I mean what I say."

"Goot. There is times, my lofe, to be funny. There is also times to be grave. It is grave-times now. I have my last word to say to you before I go."

With his wild black eyes staring through his owlish spectacles at Lucilla's face, speaking earnestly in his strange broken English, he now impressed on his patient the necessity of gravely considering, and preparing for, the operation which he had undertaken to perform.

I was greatly relieved by the tone he took with her. He spoke with authority: she would be obliged to listen to him.

In the first place, he warned Lucilla, if the operation failed, that there would be no possibility of returning to it, and trying it again. Once done, be the results what they might, it was done for good.

In the second place, before he would consent to operate, he must insist on certain conditions, essential to success, being rigidly complied with, on the part of the patient and her friends. Mr. Sebright had by no means exaggerated the length of the time of trial which would follow the operation, in the darkened room. Under no circumstances could she hope to have her eyes uncovered, even for a few moments, to the light, after a shorter interval than six weeks. During the whole of that time, and probably during another six weeks to follow, it was absolutely necessary that she should be kept in such a state of health as would assist her, constitutionally, in her gradual progress towards complete restoration of sight. If body and mind both were not preserved in their best and steadiest condition, all that his skill could do might be done in vain. Nothing to excite or to agitate her, must be allowed to find its way into the quiet daily routine of her life, until her medical attendant was satisfied that her sight was safe. The success of Herr Grosse's professional career had been due, in no small degree, to his rigid enforcement of these rules: founded on his own experience of the influence which a patient's general health, moral as well as physical, exercised on that patient's chance of profiting under an operation—more especially under an operation on an organ so delicate as the organ of sight.

Having spoken to this effect, he appealed to Lucilla's own good sense to recognize the necessity of taking time to consider her decision, and to consult on it with relatives and friends. In plain words, for at least three months the family arrangements must be so shaped, as to enable the surgeon in attendance on her to hold the absolute power of regulating her life, and of deciding on any changes introduced into it. When she and the members of her family circle were sure of being able to comply with these conditions, Lucilla had only to write to him at his hotel in London. On the next day he would undertake to be at Dimchurch. And then and there (if he was satisfied with the state of her health at the time), he would perform the operation.

After pledging himself in those terms, Herr Grosse puffed out his remaining breath in one deep guttural "Hah!"—and got briskly on his short legs. At the same moment, Zillah knocked at the door, and announced that the chaise was waiting for the two gentlemen at the rectory-gate.

Mr. Sebright rose—in some doubt, apparently, whether his colleague had done talking. "Don't let me hurry you," he said. "I have business in London; and I must positively catch the next train."

"Soh! I have my business in London, too," answered his brother-oculist—"the business of pleasure." (Mr. Sebright looked scandalized at the frankness of this confession, coming from a professional man). "I am so passion-fond of musics," Herr Grosse went on—"I want to be in goot times for the opera. Ach Gott! musics is expensive in England! I climb to the gallery, and pay my five silver shillingses even there. For five copper pences, in my own country, I can get the same thing—only better done. From the deep bottoms of my heart," proceeded this curious man, taking a cordial leave of me, "I thank you, dear madam, for the Mayonnaise. When I come again, I pray you more of that lofely dish." He turned to Lucilla, and popped his thumb on her eyelids for the last time at parting. "My sweet-Feench, remember what your surgeon-optic has said to you. I shall let the light in here—but in my own way, at my own time. Pretty lofe! Ah, how infinitely much prettier she will be, when she can see!" He took Lucilla's hand, and put it sentimentally inside the collar of his waistcoat, over the region of the heart; laying his other hand upon it as if he was keeping it warm. In this tender attitude, he blew a prodigious sigh; recovered himself, with a shake of his shock-head; winked at me through his spectacles, and waddled out after Mr. Sebright, who was already at the bottom of the stairs. Who would have guessed that this man held the key which was to open for my blind Lucilla the gates of a new life!



CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND

Alas for the Marriage!

WE were left together; Nugent having accompanied the two oculists to the garden-gate.

Now that we were alone, Oscar's absence could hardly fail to attract Lucilla's attention. Just as she was referring to him in terms which made it no easy task for me to quiet her successfully, we were interrupted by the screams of the baby, ascending from the garden below. I ran to the window, and looked out.

Mrs. Finch had actually effected her desperate purpose of waylaying the two surgeons in the interests of "baby's eyes." There she was, in a skirt and a shawl—with her novel dropped in one part of the lawn, and her handkerchief in the other—pursuing the oculists on their way to the chaise. Reckless of appearances, Herr Grosse had taken to his heels. He was retreating from the screeching infant (with his fingers stuffed into his ears), as fast as his short legs would let him. Nugent was ahead of him, hurrying on to open the garden-gate. Respectable Mr. Sebright (professionally incapable of running) brought up the rear. At short intervals, Mrs. Finch, close on his heels, held up the baby for inspection. At short intervals, Mr. Sebright held up his hands in polite protest. Nugent, roaring with laughter, threw open the garden-gate. Herr Grosse rushed through the opening, and disappeared. Mr. Sebright followed Herr Grosse; and Mrs. Finch attempted to follow Mr. Sebright—when a new personage appeared on the scene. Startled in the sanctuary of his study by the noise, the rector himself strutted into the garden, and brought his wife to a sudden standstill, by inquiring in his deepest base notes, "What does this unseemly disturbance mean?"

The chaise drove off; and Nugent closed the garden-gate.

Some words, inaudible to my ears, passed between Nugent and the rector—referring, as I could only suppose, to the visit of the two departing surgeons. After awhile, Mr. Finch turned away (to all appearance offended by something which had been said to him), and addressed himself to Oscar, who now reappeared on the lawn; having evidently only waited to show himself, until the chaise drove away. The rector paternally took his arm; and, beckoning to his wife with the other hand, took Mrs. Finch's arm next. Majestically marching back to the house between the two, Reverend Finch asserted himself and his authority alternately, now to Oscar and now to his wife. His big booming voice reached my ears distinctly, accompanied in sharp discord by the last wailings of the exhausted child.

In these terrible words the Pope of Dimchurch began:—"Oscar! you are to understand distinctly, if you please, that I maintain my protest against this impious attempt to meddle with my afflicted daughter's sight.—Mrs. Finch! you are to understand that I excuse your unseemly pursuit of two strange surgeons, in consideration of the state that I find you in at this moment. After your last confinement but eight you became, I remember, hysterically irresponsible. Hold your tongue. You are hysterically irresponsible now.—Oscar! I decline, in justice to myself, to be present at any discussion which may follow the visit of those two professional persons. But I am not averse to advising you for your own good. My Foot is down. Put your foot down too.—Mrs. Finch! how long is it since you ate last? Two hours? Are you sure it is two hours? Very good. You require a sedative application. I order you, medically, to get into a warm bath, and stay there till I come to you.—Oscar! you are deficient, my good fellow, in moral weight. Endeavor to oppose yourself resolutely to any scheme, on the part of my unhappy daughter or of those who advise her, which involves more expenditure of money in fees, and new appearances of professional persons.—Mrs. Finch! the temperature is to be ninety-eight, and the position partially recumbent.—Oscar! I authorize you (if you can't stop it in any other way) to throw My moral weight into the scale. You are free to say 'I oppose This, with Mr. Finch's approval: I am, so to speak, backed by Mr. Finch.'—Mrs. Finch! I wish you to understand the object of the bath. Hold your tongue. The object is to produce a gentle action on your skin. One of the women is to keep her eye on your forehead. The instant she perceives an appearance of moisture, she is to run for me.—Oscar! you will let me know at what decision they arrive, up-stairs in my daughter's room. Not after they have merely heard what you have to say, but after My Moral Weight has been thrown into the scale.—Mrs. Finch! on leaving the bath, I shall have you only lightly clothed. I forbid, with a view to your head, all compression, whether of stays or strings, round the waist. I forbid garters—with the same object. You will abstain from tea and talking. You will lie, loose, on your back. You will——"

What else this unhappy woman was to do, I failed to hear. Mr. Finch disappeared with her, round the corner of the house. Oscar waited at the door of our side of the rectory, until Nugent joined him, on their way back to the sitting-room in which we were expecting their return.



After an interval of a few minutes, the brothers appeared.

Throughout the whole of the time during which the surgeons had been in the house, I had noticed that Nugent persisted in keeping himself scrupulously in the background. Having assumed the responsibility of putting the serious question of Lucilla's sight scientifically to the test, he appeared to be resolved to pause there, and to interfere no further in the affair after it had passed its first stage. And now again, when we were met in our little committee to discuss, and possibly to combat, Lucilla's resolution to proceed to extremities, he once more refrained from interfering actively with the matter in hand.

"I have brought Oscar back with me," he said to Lucilla; "and I have told him how widely the two oculists differ in opinion on your case. He knows also that you have decided on being guided by the more favorable view taken by Herr Grosse—and he knows no more."

There he stopped abruptly and seated himself apart from us, at the lower end of the room.

Lucilla instantly appealed to Oscar to explain his conduct.

"Why have you kept out of the way?" she asked. "Why have you not been with me, at the most important moment of my life?"

"Because I felt your anxious position too keenly," Oscar answered. "Don't think me inconsiderate towards you, Lucilla. If I had not kept away, I might not have been able to control myself."

I thought that reply far too dexterous to have come from Oscar on the spur of the moment. Besides, he looked at his brother when he said the last words. It seemed more than likely—short as the interval had been before they appeared in the sitting-room—that Nugent had been advising Oscar, and had been telling him what to say.

Lucilla received his excuses with the readiest grace and kindness.

"Mr. Sebright tells me, Oscar, that my sight is hopelessly gone," she said. "Herr Grosse answers for it that an operation will make me see. Need I tell you which of the two I believe in? If I could have had my own way, Herr Grosse should have operated on my eyes, before he went back to London."

"Did he refuse?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Lucilla told him of the reasons which the German oculist had stated as unanswerable reasons for delay. Oscar listened attentively, and looked at his brother again, before he replied.

"As I understand it," he said, "if you decide on risking the operation at once, you decide on undergoing six weeks' imprisonment in a darkened room, and on placing yourself entirely at the surgeon's disposal for six weeks more, after that. Have you considered, Lucilla, that this means putting off our marriage again, for at least three months?"

"If you were in my place, Oscar, you would let nothing, not even your marriage, stand in the way of your restoration to sight. Don't ask me to consider, love. I can consider nothing but the prospect of seeing You!"