lady ever frightened when she was a baby by any dark
person, or any dark thing, suddenly appearing before her?"

"Never, sir! I took good care to let nothing come near her that could
frighten her--so long, poor little thing, as she could see."

"Are you quite sure you can depend on your memory?"

"Quite sure, sir--when it's a long time ago."

Zillah was dismissed. Nugent--thus far, unusually grave, and unusually
anxious--turned to me with an air of relief.

"When you proposed to me to join you in forcing Oscar to speak out," he
said, "I was not quite easy in my mind about the consequences. After what
I have just heard, my fear is removed."

"What fear?" I asked.

"The fear of Oscar's confession producing an estrangement between them
which might delay the marriage. I am against all delays. I am especially
anxious that Oscar's marriage should not be put off. When we began our
conversation, I own to you I was of Oscar's opinion that he would do
wisely to let marriage make him sure of his position in her affections,
before he risked the disclosure. Now--after what the nurse has told us--I
see no risk worth considering."

"In short," I said, "you agree with me?"

"I agree with you--though I _am_ the most opinionated man living. The
chances now seem to me to be all in Oscar's favor, Lucilla's antipathy is
not what I feared it was--an antipathy firmly rooted in a constitutional
malady. It is nothing more serious," said Nugent, deciding the question,
at once and for ever, with the air of a man profoundly versed in
physiology--"it is nothing more serious than a fanciful growth, a morbid
accident, of her blindness. She may live to get over it--she would, I
believe, certainly get over it, if she could see. In two words, after
what I have found out this morning, I say as you say--Oscar is making a
mountain out of a molehill. He ought to have put himself right with
Lucilla long since. I have unbounded influence over him. It shall back
your influence. Oscar shall make a clean breast of it, before the week is
out."

We shook hands on that bargain. As I looked at him--bright and dashing
and resolute; Oscar, as I had always wished Oscar to be--I own to my
shame I privately regretted that we had not met Nugent in the twilight,
on that evening of ours which had opened to Lucilla the gates of a new
life.

Having said to each other all that we had to say--our two lovers being
away together at the time, for a walk on the hills--