And then I touch
Oscar, and compare his face with my knowledge of my own face. Not a
single detail escapes me. I see him in my mind as plainly as you see me
across this table. Do you mean to say, when I see him with my eyes, that
I shall discover something perfectly new to me? I don't believe it!" She
started up impatiently, and took a turn in the room. "Oh!" she exclaimed,
with a stamp of her foot, "why can't I take laudanum enough, or
chloroform enough to kill me for the next six weeks--and then come to
life again when the German takes the bandage off my eyes!" She sat down
once more, and drifted all on a sudden into a question of pure morality.
"Tell me this," she said. "Is the greatest virtue, the virtue which it is
most difficult to practice?"

"I suppose so," I answered.

She drummed with both hands on the table, petulantly, viciously, as hard
as she could.

"Then, Madame Pratolungo," she said, "the greatest of all the virtues
is--Patience. Oh, my friend, how I hate the greatest of all the virtues
at this moment!"

That ended it--there the conversation found its way into other topics at
last.

Thinking afterwards of the new side of her mind which Lucilla had shown
to me, I derived one consolation from what had passed at the
breakfast-table. If Mr. Sebright proved to be right, and if the operation
failed after all, I had Lucilla's word for it that blindness, of itself,
is not the terrible affliction to the blind which the rest of us fancy it
to be--because we can see.

Towards half-past seven in the evening, I went out alone, as I had
planned, to meet Oscar on his return from London.

At a long straight stretch of the road, I saw him advancing towards me.
He was walking more rapidly than usual, and singing as he walked. Even
through its livid discoloration, the poor fellow's face looked radiant
with happiness as he came nearer. He waved his walking-stick exultingly
in the air. "Good news!" he called out at the top of his voice. "Mr.
Sebright has made me a happy man again!" I had never before seen him so
like Nugent in manner, as I now saw him when we met and he shook hands
with me.

"Tell me all about it," I said.

He gave me his arm; and, talking all the way, we walked back slowly to
Dimchurch.

"In the first place," he began, "Mr. Sebright holds to his own opinion
more firmly than ever. He feels absolutely certain that the operation
will fail."

"Is that your good news?" I asked reproachfully.