I asked how she had contrived to get
her bandage off, and to make her fatal entrance into the sitting-room.

He shrugged his shoulders. "There are times," he said cynically, "when
every womans is a hussy, and every mans is a fool. This was one of the
times."

It appeared, on further explanation, that my poor Lucilla had pleaded so
earnestly (after the nurse had left the room) to be allowed to try her
eyes, and had shown such ungovernable disappointment when he persisted in
saying No, that he had yielded--not so much to her entreaties, as to his
own conviction that it would be less dangerous to humour her than to
thwart her, with such a sensitive and irritable temperament as hers. He
had first bargained however, on his side, that she should remain in the
bed-chamber, and be content, for that time, with using her sight on the
objects round her in the room. She had promised all that he asked--and he
had been foolish enough to trust to her promise. The bandage once off,
she had instantly set every consideration at defiance--had torn herself
out of his hands like a mad creature--and had rushed into the
sitting-room before he could stop her. The rest had followed as a matter
of course. Feeble as it was at the first trial of it, her sense of sight
was sufficiently restored to enable her to distinguish objects dimly. Of
the three persons who had offered themselves to view on the right-hand
side of the door, one (Mrs. Finch) was a woman; another (Mr. Finch) was a
short, grey-headed, elderly man; the third (Nugent), in his height--which
she could see--and in the color of his hair--which she could see-was the
only one of the three who could possibly represent Oscar. The catastrophe
that followed was (as things were) inevitable. Now that the harm was
done, the one alternative left was to check the mischief at the point
which it had already reached. Not the slightest hint at the terrible
mistake that she had made must be suffered to reach her ears. If we any
of us said one word about it before he authorized us to do so, he would
refuse to answer for the consequences, and would then and there throw up
the case.

So, in his broken English, Herr Grosse explained what had happened, and
issued his directions for our future conduct.

"No person is to go into her," he said, in conclusion, "but you and goot
Mrs. Zillahs. You two watch her, turn-about-turn-about. In a whiles, she
will sleep. For me, I go to smoke my tobaccos in the garde