at to _her,_ when she asked me. I say it to
_you._ Hold your tongue and listen. All those thrill-tingles that she
once had when he touched her, belong to anodder time--the time gone-by
when her sight was in her fingers and not in her eyes. With those
fine-superfine-feelings of the days when she was blind, she pays now for
her grand new privilege of opening her eyes on the world. (And worth the
price too!) Do you understand yet? It is a sort of swop-bargain between
Nature and this poor girls of ours. I take away your eyes--I give you
your fine touch. I give you your eyes--I take away your fine touch. Soh!
that is plain. You see now."

I was too mortified and too miserable to answer him. Through all our
later troubles, I had looked forward so confidently to Oscar's
re-appearance as the one sufficient condition on which Lucilla's
happiness would be certainly restored! What had become of my
anticipations now? I sat silent; staring in stupid depression at the
pattern of the carpet. Grosse took out his watch.

"Your ten-minutes-time has counted himself out," he said.

I neither moved nor heeded him. His ferocious eyes began to flame again
behind his monstrous spectacles.

"Go-be-off-with-you!" he shouted at me as if I was deaf. "Her eyes! her
eyes! While you stop chatterboxing here, her eyes are in danger. What
with her frettings and her cryings and her damn-nonsense-lofe-business, I
swear you my solemn oath her sight was in danger when I saw her a whole
fortnight gone-by. Do you want my big pillow to fly bang at your head?
You don't want him? Be-off-away with you then, or you will have him in
one-two-three time! Be-off-away--and bring her back to me before night!"

I returned to the railway. Of all the women whom I passed in the crowded
streets, I doubt if one had a heavier heart in her bosom that morning
than mine.

To make matters worse still, my traveling companions (one in the
refreshment-room, and one pacing the platform) received my account of my
interview with Grosse in a manner which seriously disappointed and
discouraged me. Mr. Finch's inhuman conceit treated my melancholy news of
his daughter as a species of complimentary tribute to his own foresight.

"You remember, Madame Pratolungo, I took high ground in this matter from
the first. I protested against the proceedings of the man Grosse, as
involving a purely worldly interference with the ways of an inscrutable
Providence. With what effect? My paternal inf