nd having agents
whom he could employ in all the great cities of Europe. A man of Oscar's
startling personal appearance would be surely more or less easy to trace,
if the right machinery to do it could only be set at work. My savings
would suffice for this purpose to a certain extent--and to that extent I
resolved that they should be used when I reached my journey's end.

It was a troubled sea on the channel passage that night. I remained on
deck; accepting any inconvenience rather than descend into the atmosphere
of the cabin. As I looked out to sea on one side and on the other, the
dark waste of tossing waters seemed to be the fit and dreary type of the
dark prospect that was before me. On the trackless path that we were
ploughing, a faint misty moonlight shed its doubtful ray. Like the
doubtful light of hope, faintly flickering on my mind when I thought of
the coming time!

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND

The Story of Lucilla: told by Herself

IN my description of what Lucilla said and did, on the occasion when the
surgeon was teaching her to use her sight, it will be remembered that she
is represented as having been particularly anxious to be allowed to try
how she could write.

The motive at the bottom of this was the motive which is always at the
bottom of a woman's conduct when she loves. Her one ambition is to
present herself to advantage, even in the most trifling matters, before
the man on whom her heart is fixed. Lucilla's one ambition with Oscar,
was this and no more.

Conscious that her handwriting--thus far, painfully and incompletely
guided by her sense of touch--must present itself in sadly unfavorable
contrast to the handwriting of other women who could see, she persisted
in petitioning Grosse to permit her to learn to "write with her eyes
instead of her finger," until she fairly wearied out the worthy German's
power of resistance. The rapid improvement in her sight, after her
removal to the sea-side, justified him (as I was afterwards informed) in
letting her have her way. Little by little, using her eyes for a longer
and longer time on each succeeding day, she mastered the serious
difficulty of teaching herself to write by sight instead of by touch.
Beginning with lines in copybooks, she got on to writing easy words to
dictation. From that again, she advanced to writing notes; and from
writing notes to keeping a journal--this last, at the suggestion of her
aunt, who had lived in the days before p