in the fewest and plainest words, "That is what your brother
has done."

A sudden change passed over him. My reply seemed to have set his last
doubts at rest in an instant.

"That is what my brother has done," he repeated. "After all that I
sacrificed to him--after all that I trusted to his honor--when I left
England." He paused, and considered a little. "What does such a man
deserve?" he went on; speaking to himself, in a low threatening tone that
startled me.

"He deserves," I said, "what he will get when we reach England. You have
only to show yourself to make him repent his wickedness to the last day
of his life. Are exposure and defeat not punishment enough for such a man
as Nugent?" I stopped, and waited for his answer.

He turned his face away from me, and said no more until we arrived at the
station. There, he drew me aside for a moment out of hearing of the
strangers about us.

"Why should I take you away from your father?" he asked abruptly. "I am
behaving very selfishly--and I only see it now."

"Make your mind easy," I said. "If I had not met you to-day, I should
have gone to England to-morrow for Lucilla's sake."

"But now you _have_ met me," he persisted, "why shouldn't I spare you the
journey? I could write and tell you every thing--without putting you to
this fatigue and expense."

"If you say a word more," I answered, "I shall think you have some reason
of your own for wishing to go to England by yourself."

He cast one quick suspicious look at me--and led the way back to the
booking-office without uttering another word. I was not at all satisfied
with him. I thought his conduct very strange.

In silence we took our tickets; in silence, we got into the
railway-carriage. I attempted to say something encouraging, when we
started. "Don't notice me," was all he replied. "You will be doing me a
kindness, if you will let me bear it by myself." In my former experience
of him, he had talked his way out of all his other troubles--he had
clamorously demanded the expression of my sympathy with him. In this
greatest trouble, he was like another being; I hardly knew him again!
Were the hidden reserves in his nature (stirred up by another serious
call on them) showing themselves once more on the surface as they had
shown themselves already, on the fatal first day when Lucilla tried her
sight? In that way I accounted for the mere superficial change in him, at
the time. What was actually going on below the