longer! I refuse to persist in deceiving her--in
meanly deceiving her--on the day when she recovers her sight!"

It is entirely beyond my power to describe the tone in which he made that
reply. I can only declare that it struck me dumb for the moment. I drew a
step nearer to him. With vague misgivings in me, I looked him searchingly
in the face. He looked back at me, without shrinking.

"Well?" he asked--with a hard smile which defied me to put him in the
wrong.

I could discover nothing in his face--I could only follow my instincts as
a woman. Those instincts warned me to accept his explanation.

"I am to understand then that you have decided on staying here?" I said.

"Certainly!"

"What do you propose to do, when Herr Grosse arrives, and we assemble in
Lucilla's room?"

"I propose to be present among the rest of you, at the most interesting
moment of Lucilla's life."

"No! you don't propose that!"

"I do!"

"You have forgotten something, Mr. Nugent Dubourg."

"What is it, Madame Pratolungo?"

"You have forgotten that Lucilla believes the brother with the discolored
face to be You, and the brother with the fair complexion to be Oscar. You
have forgotten that the surgeon has expressly forbidden us to agitate her
by entering into any explanations before he allows her to use her eyes.
You have forgotten that the very deception which you have just positively
refused to go on with, will be nevertheless a deception continued, if you
are present when Lucilla sees. Your own resolution pledges you not to
enter the rectory doors until Lucilla has discovered the truth." In those
words I closed the vice on him. I had got Mr. Nugent Dubourg!

He turned deadly pale. His eyes dropped before mine for the first time.

"Thank you for reminding me," he said. "I _had_ forgotten."

He pronounced those submissive words in a suddenly-lowered voice.
Something in his tone, or something in the dropping of his eyes, set my
heart beating quickly, with a certain vague expectation which I was
unable to realize to myself.

"You agree with me," I said, "that you cannot be one amongst us at the
rectory? What will you do?"

"I will remain at Browndown," he answered.

I felt he was lying. Don't ask for my reasons: I have no reasons to give.
When he said "I will remain at Browndown," I felt he was lying.

"Why not do what Oscar asks of you?" I went on. "If you are absent, you
may as well be in one place as in another. There is ple