ee you as you are.' With
that answer, he walked out of the room. Something has upset him--I can't
imagine what it is. Do pray see what you can make of him! My only hope is
in you."

I own I felt reluctant to interfere. Suddenly and strangely as Nugent had
altered his point of view, it seemed to me undeniable that Nugent was
right. At the same time, Oscar looked so disappointed and distressed,
that it was really impossible, on that day above all others, to pain him
additionally by roundly saying No. I undertook to do what I could--and I
inwardly hoped that circumstances would absolve me from the necessity of
doing anything at all.

Circumstances failed to justify my selfish confidence in them.

I was out in the village, after breakfast, on a domestic errand connected
with the necessary culinary preparations for the reception of Herr
Grosse--when I heard my name pronounced behind me, and, turning round,
found myself face to face with Nugent.

"Has my brother been bothering you this morning," he asked, "before I was
up?"

I instantly noticed a return in him, as he said that, to the same dogged
ungracious manner which had perplexed and displeased me at my last
confidential interview with him in the rectory garden.

"Oscar has been speaking to me this morning," I replied.

"About me?"

"About you. You have distressed and disappointed him----"

"I know! I know! Oscar is worse than a child. I am beginning to lose all
patience with him."

"I am sorry to hear you say that, Nugent. You have borne with him so
kindly thus far--surely you can make allowances for him to-day? His whole
future may depend on what happens in Lucilla's sitting-room a few hours
hence."

"He is making a mountain out of a mole-hill--and so are you."

Those words were spoken bitterly--almost rudely. I answered sharply on my
side.

"You are the last person living who has any right to say that. Oscar is
in a false position towards Lucilla, with your knowledge and consent. In
your brother's interests, you agreed to the fraud that has been practiced
on her. In your brother's interests, again, you are asked to leave
Dimchurch. Why do you refuse?"

"I refuse, because I have come round to your way of thinking. What did
you say of Oscar and of me, in the summer-house? You said we were taking
a cruel advantage of Lucilla's blindness. You were right. It was cruel
not to have told her the truth. I won't be a party to concealing the
truth from her any