I acted wisely?

There is the question which always comes to me and torments me, when I
wake in the night. Let me look again (for the fiftieth time at least) at
Oscar's letter.

[Note.--I copy the letter. Other eyes than hers ought to see it in this
place. It is Nugent, of course, who here writes in Oscar's character and
in Oscar's name. You will observe that his good resolutions, when he left
me, held out as far as Paris--and then gave way as follows.--P.]

"MY OWN DEAREST,--I have reached Paris, and have found my first
opportunity of writing to you since I left Browndown. Madame Pratolungo
has no doubt told you that a sudden necessity has called me to my
brother. I have not yet reached the place at which I am to meet him.
Before I meet him, let me tell you what the necessity which has parted us
really is. Madame Pratolungo no longer possesses my confidence. When you
have read on a little farther, she will no longer possess yours.

"Alas, my love, I must amaze you, shock you, grieve you--I who would lay
down my life for your happiness! Let me write it in the fewest words. I
have made a terrible discovery. Lucilla! you have trusted Madame
Pratolungo as your friend. Trust her no longer. She is your enemy, and
mine.

"I suspected her some time since. My worst suspicions have been
confirmed.

"Long ere this, I ought to have told you, what I tell you now. But I
shrink from distressing you. To see a sad look on your dear face breaks
my heart. It is only when I am away from you--when I fear the
consequences if you are not warned of your danger--that I can summon the
courage to tear off the mask from that woman's false face, and show her
to you as she really is. It is impossible for me to enter into details in
the space of a letter; I reserve all particulars until we meet again, and
until I can produce, what you have a right to ask for--proof that I am
speaking the truth.

"In the meanwhile, I beg you to look back into your own thoughts, to
recall your own words, on the day when Madame Pratolungo offended you in
the rectory garden. On that occasion, the truth escaped the Frenchwoman's
lips--and she knew it!

"Do you remember what you said, after she had followed you to Browndown?
I mean, after she had declared that you would have fallen in love with my
brother if you had met him first--and after Nugent (at her instigation no
doubt) had taken advantage of your blindness to make you believe that you
were speaking to _