r's hat. With careful, caressing hand,
he parted his brother's ruffled hair over the forehead. Nugent's head
sank lower. His face was distorted, his hands were clenched, in the dumb
agony of remembrance which that tender voice and that kind hand had set
loose in him. Oscar gave him time to recover himself: Oscar spoke next to
me.

"You know Nugent," he said. "You remember when we first met, my telling
you that Nugent was an angel? You saw for yourself, when he came to
Dimchurch, how kindly he helped me; how faithfully he kept my secrets;
what a true friend he was. Look at him--and you will feel, as I do, that
we have misunderstood and misinterpreted him, in some monstrous way." He
turned again to Nugent. "I daren't tell you," he went on, "what I have
heard about you, and what I have believed about you, and what vile
unbrotherly thoughts I have had of being revenged on you. Thank God, they
are gone! My dear fellow, I look back at them--now I see you--as I might
look back at a horrible dream. How _can_ I see you, Nugent, and believe
that you have been false to me? You, a villain who has tried to rob poor
Me of the only woman in the world who cares for me! You, so handsome and
so popular, who may marry any woman you like! It can't be. You have
drifted innocently into some false position without knowing it. Defend
yourself. No. Let me defend you. You shan't humble yourself to anybody.
Tell me how you have really acted towards Lucilla, and towards me--and
leave it to your brother to set you right with everybody. Come, Nugent!
lift up your head--and tell me what I shall say."

Nugent lifted his head, and looked at Oscar.

Ghastly as his face was, I saw something in his eyes, when he first fixed
them on his brother, which again reminded me of past days--the days when
he had joined us at Dimchurch, and when he used to talk of "poor Oscar"
in the tender, light-hearted way that first won me. I thought once more
of the memorable night-interview between us at Browndown, when Oscar had
left England. Again, I called to mind the signs which had told of the
nobler nature of the man pleading with him. Again, I remembered the
remorse which had moved him to tears--the effort he had made in my
presence to atone for past misdoing, and to struggle for the last time
against the guilty passion that possessed him. Was the nature which could
feel that remorse utterly depraved? Was the man who had made that
effort--the last of many that had gon