ungo. In my parental character,
I should like to wring his neck. In my clerical character, I feel it
incumbent on me to pause--and write to him. You feel the responsibility?
You understand the distinction?"

I understood that he was afraid. Answering him by an inclination of the
head (I hate a coward!) I walked silently to the door.

Mr. Finch returned my bow with a look of helpless perplexity. "Are you
going to leave me?" he inquired blandly.

"I am going to Browndown."

If I had said that I was going to a place which the rector had frequent
occasion to mention in the stronger passages of his sermons, Mr. Finch's
face could hardly have shown more astonishment and alarm than it
exhibited when I replied to him in those terms. He lifted his persuasive
right hand; he opened his eloquent lips. Before the coming overflow of
language could reach me, I was out of the room, on my way to Browndown.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH

Is there no Excuse for Him?

OSCAR'S dismissed servant (left, during the usual month of warning, to
take care of the house) opened the door to me when I knocked. Although
the hour was already a late one in primitive Dimchurch, the man showed no
signs of surprise at seeing me.

"Is Mr. Nugent Dubourg at home?"

"Yes, ma'am." He lowered his voice, and added, "I think Mr. Nugent
expected to see you to-night."

Whether he intended it, or not, the servant had done me a good turn--he
had put me on my guard. Nugent Dubourg understood my character better
than I had understood his. He had foreseen what would happen, when I
heard of Lucilla's visit on my return to the rectory--and he had, no
doubt, prepared himself accordingly. I was conscious of a certain nervous
trembling (I own) as I followed the servant to the sitting-room. At the
moment, however, when he opened the door, this ignoble sensation left me
as suddenly as it had come. I felt myself Pratolungo's widow again, when
I entered the room.

A reading-lamp, with its shade down, was the only light on the table.
Nugent Dubourg, comfortably reposing in an easychair, sat by the lamp,
with a cigar in his mouth, and a book in his hand. He put down the book
on the table as he rose to receive me. Knowing, by this time, what sort
of man I had to deal with, I was determined not to let even the merest
trifles escape me. It might have its use in helping me to understand him,
if I knew how he had been occupying his mind while he was expecting me to
arrive