ept Nugent Dubourg in Paris. On the
morning when he received it, he started for England. Here is the entry in
Lucilla's journal.--P.]

_August_ 31st.--A telegram for me at breakfast-time. I am too happy to
keep my hand steady--I am writing horribly. It doesn't matter: nothing
matters but my telegram. (Oh, what a noble creature the man was who
invented telegrams!) Oscar is on his way to Ramsgate!

CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD

Lucilla's Journal, continued

_September_ 1st.

I AM composed enough to return to my Journal, and to let my mind dwell a
little on all that I have thought and felt since Oscar has been here.

Now that I have lost Madame Pratolungo, I have no friend with whom I can
talk over my little secrets. My aunt is all that is kind and good to me;
but with a person so much older than I am--who has lived in such a
different world from my world, and whose ideas seem to be so far away
from mine--how can I talk about my follies and extravagances, and expect
sympathy in return! My one confidential friend is my Journal--I can only
talk about myself to myself, in these pages. My position feels sometimes
like a very lonely one. I saw two girls telling all their secrets to each
other on the sands to-day--and I am afraid I envied them.

Well, my dear Journal, how did I feel--after longing for Oscar--when
Oscar came to me? It is dreadful to own it; but my book locks up, and my
book can be trusted with the truth. I felt ready to cry--I was so
unexpectedly, so horribly, disappointed.

No. "Disappointed" is not the word. I can't find the word. There was a
moment--I hardly dare write it: it seems so atrociously wicked--there was
a moment when I actually wished myself blind again.

He took me in his arms; he held my hand in his. In the time when I was
blind, how I should have felt it! how the delicious _tingle_ would have
run through me when he touched me! Nothing of the kind happened now. He
might have been Oscar's brother for all the effect he produced on me. I
have myself taken his hand since, and shut my eyes to try and renew my
blindness, and put myself back completely as I was in the old time. The
same result still. Nothing, nothing, nothing!

Is it that he is a little restrained with me on his side? He certainly
is! I felt it the moment he came into the room--I have felt it ever
since.

No: it is not that. In the old time, when we were only beginning to love
each other, he was restrained with me. But it mad