nformed me that he had so
fretted himself about Lucilla, that he had been attacked by "a visitation
of gouts." It was impossible to move his "foots" without instantly
plunging into the torture of the infernal regions. "If it is you, my goot
dear, who are going to find her," he concluded, "come to me first in
London. I have something most dismal-serious to say to you about our poor
little Feench's eyes."

No words can tell how that last sentence startled and grieved me. Mrs.
Finch increased my anxiety and alarm by repeating what she had heard Miss
Batchford say, during her brief visit to the rectory, on the subject of
Lucilla's sight. Grosse had been seriously dissatisfied with the state of
his patient's eyes, when he had seen them as long ago as the fourth of
the month; and, on the morning of the next day, the servant had reported
Lucilla as being hardly able to distinguish objects in the view from the
window of her room. Later on the same day, she had secretly left
Ramsgate; and Grosse's letter proved that she had not been near her
surgical attendant since.

Weary as I was after the journey, this miserable news kept me waking long
after I had gone to my bed. The next morning, I was up with the
servants--impatient to start for London, by the first train.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH

On the Way to the End. Second Stage

EARLY riser as I was, I found that Oscar had risen earlier still. He had
left the rectory and had disturbed Mr. Gootheridge's morning slumbers by
an application at the inn for the key of Browndown.

On his return to the rectory, he merely said that he had been to see
after various things belonging to him, which were still left in the empty
house. His look and manner as he gave us this brief explanation were, to
my mind, more unsatisfactory than ever. I made no remark; and, observing
that his loose traveling coat was buttoned awry over the breast, I set it
right for him. My hand, as I did this, touched his breast-pocket. He
started back directly--as if there was something in the pocket which he
did not wish me to feel. Was it something he had brought from Browndown?

We got away--encumbered by Mr. Finch, who insisted on attaching himself
to Oscar--by the first express train, which took us straight to London.
Comparison of time-tables, on reaching the terminus, showed that I had
leisure to spare for a brief visit to Grosse, before we again took the
railway back to Sydenham. Having decided not to me