take the wisest previous calculation by surprise. Oscar's
prospects never had looked darker to me than they looked at that moment.

It would have been useless and cruel to have said to him what I have just
said here. I put as bright a face on it as I could, and asked if he
proposed to follow Mr. Sebright's advice.

"Yes," he said. "With a certain reservation of my own, which occurred to
me after I had left his house."

"May I ask what it is?"

"Certainly. I mean to beg Nugent to leave Dimchurch, before Lucilla tries
her sight for the first time. He will do that, I know, to please me."

"And when he has done it, what then?"

"Then I mean to be present--as Mr. Sebright suggested--when the bandage
is taken off."

"Previously telling Lucilla," I interposed, "that it is you who are in
the room?"

"No. There I take the precaution that I alluded to just now. I propose to
leave Lucilla under the impression that it is I who have left Dimchurch,
and that Nugent's face is the face she sees. If Mr. Sebright proves to be
right, and if her first sensation is a sensation of relief, I will own
the truth to her the same day. If not, I will wait to make my confession
until she has become reconciled to the sight of me. That plan meets every
possible emergency. It is one of the few good ideas that my stupid head
has hit on since I have been at Dimchurch."

He said those last words with such an innocent air of triumph, that I
really could not find it in my heart to damp his ardor by telling him
what I thought of his idea. All I said was, "Don't forget, Oscar, that
the cleverest plans are at the mercy of circumstances. At the last
moment, an accident may happen which will force you to speak out."

We came in sight of the rectory as I gave him that final warning. Nugent
was strolling up and down the road on the look-out for us. I left Oscar
to tell his story over again to his brother, and went into the house.

Lucilla was at her piano when I entered the sitting-room. She was not
only playing--but (a rare thing with her) singing too. The song was,
poetry and music both, of her own composing. "I shall see him! I shall
see him!" In those four words the composition began and ended. She
adapted them to all the happy melodies in her memory. She accompanied
them with hands that seemed to be mad for joy--hands that threatened
every moment to snap the chords of the instrument. Never, since my first
day at the rectory, had I heard such a n