Grosse by
surprise. With his previous knowledge, however, of the situation of
affairs at Dimchurch, he could be at no loss to understand in what
character Nugent had presented himself to Lucilla; and he could certainly
not fail to understand--after what he had seen and what she had herself
told him--that the deception was, under present circumstances, producing
the worst possible effect on her mind. Arriving at this conclusion, he
was not a man to hesitate about the duty that lay before him. When he
entered the room at the hotel in which Nugent was waiting, he announced
the object of his visit in these four plain words, as follows:

"Pack up, and go!"

Nugent coolly offered him a chair, and asked what he meant.

Grosse refused the chair--but consented to explain himself in terms
variously reported by the two parties. Combining the statements, and
translating Grosse (in this grave matter) into plain English, I find that
the German must have expressed himself in these, or nearly in these,
words:

"As a professional man, Mr. Nugent, I invariably refuse to enter into
domestic considerations connected with my patients with which I have
nothing to do. In the case of Miss Finch, my business is not with your
family complications. My business is to secure the recovery of the young
lady's sight. If I find her health improving, I don't inquire how or why.
No matter what private and personal frauds you may be practicing upon
her, I have nothing to say to them--more, I am ready to take advantage of
them myself--so long as their influence is directly beneficial in keeping
her morally and physically in the condition in which I wish her to be.
But, the instant I discover that this domestic conspiracy of yours--this
personation of your brother which once quieted and comforted her--is
unfavorably affecting her health of body and her peace of mind, I
interfere between you in the character of her medical attendant, and stop
it on medical grounds. You are producing in my patient a conflict of
feeling, which--in a nervous temperament like hers--cannot go on without
serious injury to her health. And serious injury to her health means
serious injury to her eyes. I won't have that--I tell you plainly to pack
up and go. I meddle with nothing else. After what you have yourself seen,
I leave you to decide whether you will restore your brother to Miss
Finch, or not. All I say is, Go. Make any excuse you like, but go before
you have done more mi