e of despair! Nugent's patience gave way.

"Let us have an end of this mystification," he said, putting Oscar back
from him, sharply, at arm's length. "I want a plain answer to a plain
question. She knows that the boy knocked at the door, and asked if Blue
Face was at home. Does she know what the boy's impudence meant? Yes? or
No?"

"Yes."

"Does she know that it is you who are Blue Face?"

"No."

"No!!! Who else does she think it is?"

As he asked the question, Lucilla appeared at the door of the house. She
moved her blind face inquiringly first one way, then the other. "Oscar!"
she called out, "why have you left me alone? where are you?"

Oscar turned, trembling, to his brother.

"For God's sake forgive me, Nugent!" he said. "She thinks it's YOU."

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH

He proves Equal to the Occasion

AT that astounding confession, abruptly revealed in those plain words,
even resolute Nugent lost all power of self-control. He burst out with a
cry which reached Lucilla's ears. She instantly turned towards us, and
instantly assumed that the cry had come from Oscar's lips.

"Ah! there you are!" she exclaimed. "Oscar! Oscar! what is the matter
with you to-day?"

Oscar was incapable of answering her. He had cast one glance of entreaty
at his brother as Lucilla came nearer to us. The mute reproach which had
answered him, in Nugent's eyes, had broken down his last reserves of
endurance. He was crying silently on Nugent's breast.

It was necessary that one of us should make his, or her, voice heard. I
spoke first.

"Nothing is the matter, my dear," I said, advancing to meet Lucilla. "We
were passing the house, and Oscar ran out to stop us and bring us in."

My excuses roused a new alarm in her.

"Us?" she repeated. "Who is with you?"

"Nugent is with me."

The result of the deplorable misunderstanding which had taken place,
instantly declared itself. She turned deadly pale under the horror of
feeling that she was in the presence of the man with the blue face.

"Take me near enough to speak to him, but not to touch him," she
whispered. "I have heard what he is like. (Oh, if you saw him, as I see
him, _in the dark!_) I must control myself. I must speak to Oscar's
brother, for Oscar's sake."

She seized my arm and held me close to her. What ought I to have said?
What ought I to have done? I neither knew what to say or what to do. I
looked from Lucilla to the twin brothers. There was Oscar the