g bleeding on the floor and
coaxing Jicks to venture within reach of his hand. If any of us hinted at
his occupying himself once more with his favorite art, he stopped his
ears, and entreated us not to renew his horrible associations with the
past. He would not even look at his box of chasing tools. The
doctor--summoned to say what was the matter with him--told us that his
nervous system had been shaken, and frankly acknowledged that there was
nothing to be done but to wait until time set it right again.

I am afraid I must confess that I myself took no very indulgent view of
the patient's case.

It was his duty to exert himself--as I thought. He appeared to me to be
too indolent to make a proper effort to better his own condition. Lucilla
and I had more than one animated discussion about him. On a certain
evening when we were at the piano gossiping, and playing in the
intervals, she was downright angry with me for not sympathizing with her
darling as unreservedly as she did. "I have noticed one thing, Madame
Pratolungo," she said to me, with a flushed face and a heightened tone.
"You have never done Oscar justice from the first."

(Mark those trifling words. The time is coming when you will hear of them
again.)

The preparations for the contemplated marriage went on. The lawyers
produced their sketch of the settlement; and Oscar wrote (to an address
in New York, given to him by Nugent) to tell his brother of the
approaching change in his life, and of the circumstances which had
brought it about.

The marriage settlement was not shown to me; but, from certain signs and
tokens, I guessed that Oscar's perfect disinterestedness on the question
of money had been turned to profitable account by Oscar's future
father-in-law. Reverend Finch was reported to have shed tears when he
first read the document. And Lucilla came out of the study, after an
interview with her father, more thoroughly and vehemently indignant than
I had ever seen her yet. "Don't ask what is the matter!" she said to me
between her teeth. "I am ashamed to tell you." When Oscar came in, a
little later, she fell on her knees--literally on her knees--before him.
Some overmastering agitation was in possession of her whole being, which
made her, for the moment, reckless of what she said or did. "I worship
you!" she burst out hysterically, kissing his hand. "You are the noblest
of living men. I can never, never be worthy of you!" The interpretation
of these