Poor Miss Finch

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH

  Is there no Excuse for Him?

  OSCAR'S dismissed servant (left, during the usual month of warning, totake care of the house) opened the door to me when I knocked. Althoughthe hour was already a late one in primitive Dimchurch, the man showed nosigns of surprise at seeing me.

  "Is Mr. Nugent Dubourg at home?"

  "Yes, ma'am." He lowered his voice, and added, "I think Mr. Nugentexpected to see you to-night."

  Whether he intended it, or not, the servant had done me a good turn--hehad put me on my guard. Nugent Dubourg understood my character betterthan I had understood his. He had foreseen what would happen, when Iheard of Lucilla's visit on my return to the rectory--and he had, nodoubt, prepared himself accordingly. I was conscious of a certain nervoustrembling (I own) as I followed the servant to the sitting-room. At themoment, however, when he opened the door, this ignoble sensation left meas suddenly as it had come. I felt myself Pratolungo's widow again, whenI entered the room.

  A reading-lamp, with its shade down, was the only light on the table.Nugent Dubourg, comfortably reposing in an easychair, sat by the lamp,with a cigar in his mouth, and a book in his hand. He put down the bookon the table as he rose to receive me. Knowing, by this time, what sortof man I had to deal with, I was determined not to let even the meresttrifles escape me. It might have its use in helping me to understand him,if I knew how he had been occupying his mind while he was expecting me toarrive. I looked at the book. It was _Rousseau's Confessions._

  He advanced with his pleasant smile, and offered his hand as if nothinghad happened to disturb our ordinary relations towards each other. I drewback a step, and looked at him.

  "Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked.

  "I will answer that directly," I said. "Where is your brother?"

  "I don't know."

  "When you _do_ know, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, and when you have brought yourbrother back to this house, I will take your hand--not before."

  He bowed resignedly, with a little satirical shrug of the shoulders, andasked if he might offer me a chair.

  I took a chair for myself, and placed it so that I might be opposite tohim when he resumed his seat. He checked himself in the act of sittingdown, and looked towards the open window.

  "Shall I throw away my cigar?" he said.

  "Not on my account. I have no objection to smoking."

  "Thank you." He took his chair--keeping his face in the partial obscuritycast by the shade of the lamp. After smoking for a moment, he spokeagain, without turning to look at me. "May I ask what your object is inhonoring me with this visit?"

  "I have two objects. The first is to see that you leave Dimchurchto-morrow morning. The second is to make you restore your brother to hispromised wife."

  He looked round at me quickly. His experience of my irritable temper hadnot prepared him for the perfect composure of voice and manner with whichI answered his question. He looked back again from me to his cigar, andknocked off the ash at the tip of it (considering with himself) before headdressed his next words to me.

  "We will come to the question of my leaving Dimchurch presently," hesaid. "Have you received a letter from Oscar?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you read it?"

  "I have read it."

  "Then you know that we understand each other?"

  "I know that your brother has sacrificed himself--and that you have takena base advantage of the sacrifice."

  He started, and looked round at me once more. I saw that something in mylanguage, or in my tone of speaking, had stung him.

  "You have your privilege as a lady," he said. "Don't push it too far.What Oscar has done, he has done of his own free will."

  "What Oscar has done," I rejoined, "is lamentably foolish, cruelly wrong.Still, perverted as it is, there is something generous, something noble,in the motive which has led _him._ As for your conduct in this matter, Isee nothing but what is mean, nothing but what is cowardly, in the motivewhich has led _you._"

  He started to his feet, and flung his cigar into the empty fireplace.

  "Madame Pratolungo," he said, "I have not the honor of knowing anythingof your family. I can't call a woman to account for insulting me. Do youhappen to have any _man_ related to you, in or out of England?"

  "I happen to have what will do equally well on this occasion," I replied."I have a hearty contempt for threats of all sorts, and a steadyresolution in me to say what I think."

  He walked to the door, and opened it.

  "I decline to give you the opportunity of saying anything more," herejoined. "I beg to leave you in possession of the room, and to wish yougood evening."

  He opened the door. I had entered the house, armed in my own mind with alast desperate resolve, only to be communicated to him, or to anybody, inthe final emergency and at the eleventh hour. The time had come forsaying what I had hoped with my whole heart to have left unsaid.

  I rose on my side, and stopped him as he was leaving the room.

  "Return to your chair and your book," I said. "Our interview is at anend. In leaving the house, I have one last word to say. You are wastingyour time in remaining at Dimchurch."

  "I am the best judge of that," he answered, making way for me to go out.

  "Pardon me, you are not in a position to judge at all. You don't knowwhat I mean to do as soon as I get back to the rectory."

  He instantly changed his position; placing himself in the doorway so asto prevent me from leaving the room.

  "What do you mean to do?" he asked, keeping his eyes attentively fixed onmine.

  "I mean to force you to leave Dimchurch."

  He laughed insolently. I went on as quietly as before. "You havepersonated your brother to Lucilla this morning," I said. "You have donethat, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, for the last time."

  "Have I? Who will prevent me from doing it again?"

  "I will."

  This time he took it seriously.

  "You?" he said. "How are _you_ to control me, if you please?"

  "I can control you through Lucilla. When I get back to the rectory, Ican, and will, tell Lucilla the truth."

  He started--and instantly recovered himself.

  "You forget something, Madame Pratolungo. You forget what the surgeon inattendance on her has told us."

  "I remember it perfectly. If we say or do anything to agitate hispatient, in her present state, the surgeon refuses to answer for theconsequences."

  "Well?"

  "Well--between the alternative of leaving you free to break both theirhearts, and the alternative of setting the surgeon's warning atdefiance--dreadful as the choice is, my choice is made. I tell you toyour face, I would rather see Lucilla blind again than see her yourwife."

  His estimate of the strength of the position on his side, had beennecessarily based on one conviction--the conviction that Grosse'sprofessional authority would tie my tongue. I had scattered hiscalculations to the winds. He turned so deadly pale that, dim as thelight was, I could see the change in his face.

  "I don't believe you!" he said.

  "Present yourself at the rectory tomorrow," I answered--"and you willsee. I have no more to say to you. Let me by."

  You may suppose I was only trying to frighten him. I was doing nothing ofthe sort. Blame me, or approve of me, as you please, I was expressing theresolution which I had in my mind when I spoke. Whether my courage wouldhave held out through the walk from Browndown to the rectory--whether Ishould have shrunk from it when I actually found myself in Lucilla'spresence--is more than I can venture to decide. All I say is that I did,in my desperation, positively mean doing it, at the moment when Ithreatened to do it--and that Nugent Dubourg heard something in my voicewhich told him I was in earnest.

  "You fiend!" he burst out, stepping close up to me with a look of fury.

  The whole passionate fervour of the love that the miserable wretch feltfor her, shook him from head to foot, as his horror of me found its wayto expression in those two
words.

  "Spare me your opinion of my character," I said. "I don't expect _you_to understand the motives of an honest woman. For the last time, let meby!"

  Instead of letting me by, he locked the door, and put the key in hispocket. That done, he pointed to the chair that I had left.

  "Sit down," he said, with a sudden sinking in his voice which implied asudden change in his temper. "Let me have a minute to myself."

  I returned to my place. He took his own chair on the other side of thetable, and covered his face with his hands. We waited awhile in silence.I looked at him, once or twice, as the minutes followed each other. Theshaded lamp-light glistened dimly on something between his fingers. Irose softly, and stretched across the table to look closer. Tears! On myword of honor, tears forcing their way through his fingers, as he heldthem over his face! I had been on the point of speaking. I sat down againin silence.

  "Say what you want of me. Tell me what you wish me to do." Those were hisfirst words. He spoke them without moving his hands; so quietly, sosadly, with such hopeless sorrow, such uncomplaining resignation in hisvoice, that I, who had entered that room, hating him, rose again, andwent round to his chair. I--who a minute ago, if I had had the strength,would have struck him down on the floor at my feet--laid my hand on hisshoulder, pitying him from the bottom of my heart. That is what womenare! There is a specimen of their sense, firmness, and self-control!

  "Be just, Nugent," I said. "Be honorable. Be all that I once thought you.I want no more."

  He dropped his arms on the table: his head fell on them, and he burstinto a fit of crying. It was so like his brother, that I could almosthave fancied I, too, had mistaken one of them for the other. "Oscar overagain," I thought to myself, "on the first day when I spoke to him inthis very room!"

  "Come!" I said, when he was quieter. "We shall end in understanding eachother and respecting each other after all."

  He irritably shook my hand off his shoulder, and turned his face awayfrom the light.

  "Don't talk of understanding _me,_" he said. "Your sympathy is for Oscar.He is the victim; he is the martyr; he has all your consideration and allyour pity. I am a coward; I am a villain; I have no honor and no heart.Tread Me under foot like a reptile. _My_ misery is only what I deserve!Compassion is thrown away--isn't it?--on such a scoundrel as I am?"

  I was sorely puzzled how to answer him. All that he had said againsthimself, I had thought of him in my own mind. And why not? He _had_behaved infamously--he _was_ a fit object for righteous indignation. Andyet--and yet--it is sometimes so very hard, however badly a man may havebehaved, for women to hold out against forgiving him, when they know thata woman is at the bottom of it.

  "Whatever I may have thought of you," I said, "it is still in your power,Nugent, to win back my old regard for you."

  "Is it?" he answered scornfully. "I know better than that. You are nottalking to Oscar now--you are talking to a man who has had someexperience of women. I know how you all hold to your opinions becausethey are your opinions--without asking yourselves whether they are rightor wrong. There are men who could understand me and pity me. No woman cando it. The best and cleverest among you don't know what love is--as a manfeels it. It isn't the frenzy with You that it is with Us. Itacknowledges restraints in a woman--it bursts through everything in aman. It robs him of his intelligence, his honor, his self-respect--itlevels him with the brutes--it debases him into idiocy--it lashes himinto madness. I tell you I am not accountable for my own actions. Thekindest thing you could do for me would be to shut me up in a madhouse.The best thing I could do for myself would be to cut my throat.--Oh, yes!this is a shocking way of talking, isn't it? I ought to struggle againstit--as you say. I ought to summon my self-control. Ha! ha! ha! Here is aclever woman--here is an experienced woman. And yet--though she has seenme in Lucilla's company hundreds of times--she has never once discoveredthe signs of a struggle in me! From the moment when I first saw thatheavenly creature, it has been one long fight against myself, oneinfernal torment of shame and remorse; and this clever friend of mine hasobserved so little and knows so little, that she can only view my conductin one light--it is the conduct of a coward and a villain!"

  He got up, and took a turn in the room. I was--naturally, I think--alittle irritated by his way of putting it. A man assuming to know moreabout love than a woman! Was there ever such a monstrous perversion ofthe truth as that? I appeal to the women!

  "You ought to be the last person to blame me," I said. "I had too high anopinion of you to suspect what was going on. I will never make the samemistake again--I promise you that!"

  He came back, and stood still in front of me, looking me hard in theface.

  "Do you really mean to say you saw nothing to set you thinking, on theday when I first met her?" he asked. "You were there in the room--didn'tyou see that she struck me dumb? Did you notice nothing suspicious at alater time? When I was suffering martyrdom, if I only looked at her--wasthere nothing to be seen in me which told its own tale?"

  "I noticed that you were never at your ease with her," I replied. "But Iliked you and trusted you--and I failed to understand it. That's all."

  "Did you fail to understand everything that followed? Didn't I speak toher father? Didn't I try to hasten Oscar's marriage?"

  It was true. He _had_ tried.

  "When we first talked of his telling Lucilla of the discoloration of hisface, did I not agree with you that he ought to put himself right withher, in his own interests?"

  True again. Impossible to deny that he had sided with my view.

  "When she all but found it out for herself, whose influence was used tomake him own it? Mine! What did I do, when he tried to confess it, andfailed to make her understand him? what did I do when she first committedthe mistake of believing _me_ to be the disfigured man?"

  The audacity of that last question fairly took away my breath. "Youcruelly helped to deceive her," I answered indignantly. "You baselyencouraged your brother in his fatal policy of silence."

  He looked at me with an angry amazement on his side which more thanequaled the angry amazement on mine.

  "So much for the delicate perception of a woman!" he exclaimed. "So muchfor the wonderful tact which is the peculiar gift of the sex! You can seeno motive but a bad motive in my sacrificing myself for Oscar's sake?"

  I began to discern faintly that there might have been another than a badmotive for his conduct. But--well! I dare say I was wrong; I resented thetone he was taking with me; I would have owned I had made a mistake toanybody else in the world; I wouldn't own it to _him._ There!

  "Look back for one moment," he resumed, in quieter and gentler tones."See how hardly you have judged me! I seized the opportunity--I swear toyou this is true--I seized the opportunity of making myself an object ofhorror to her, the moment I heard of the mistake that she had made. Ifelt in myself that I was growing less and less capable of avoiding her,and I caught at the chance of making _her_ avoid _me;_ I did that--and Idid more! I entreated Oscar to let me leave Dimchurch. He appealed to me,in the name of our love for each other, to remain. I couldn't resist him.Where do you see signs of the conduct of a scoundrel in all this? Would ascoundrel have betrayed himself to you a dozen times over--as I did inthat talk of ours in the summer-house? I remember saying in so manywords, I wished I had never come to Dimchurch. What reason but one couldthere be for my saying that? How is it that you never even asked me whatI meant?"

  "You forget," I interposed, "that I had no opportunity of asking you.Lucilla interrupted us, and diverted my attention to other things. Whatdo you mean by putting me on my defence in this way?" I went on, more andmore irritated by the tone he was taking with me. "What right have you tojudge my conduct?"

  He looked at me with a kind of vacant surprise.

  "_Have_ I been judging your conduct?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Perhaps I was thinking, if you had seen my infatuation in time youmight have checked it in time. No!" he exclaimed, before I could answ
erhim. "Nothing could have checked it--nothing will cure it but my death.Let us try to agree. I beg your pardon if I have offended you. I amwilling to take a just view of your conduct. Will you take a just view ofmine?"

  I tried hard to take a just view. Though I resented his manner ofspeaking to me, I nevertheless secretly felt for him, as I haveconfessed. Still I could not forget that he had attempted to attract tohimself Lucilla's first look, on the day when she tried her sight--thathe had personated his brother to Lucilla that very morning--that he hadsuffered his brother to go away heart-broken, a voluntary exile from allthat he held dear. No! I could feel for him, but I could _not_ take ajust view of him. I sat down, and said nothing.

  He returned to the question between us; treating me with the needfulpoliteness, when he spoke next. For all that, he alarmed me, by what henow said, as he had not alarmed me yet.

  "I repeat what I have already told you," he proceeded. "I am no longeraccountable for what I do. If I know anything of myself, I believe itwill be useless to trust me in the future. While I am capable of speakingthe truth, let me tell it. Whatever happens at a later time--rememberthis, I have honestly made a clean breast of it to-night."

  "Stop!" I cried. "I don't understand your reckless way of talking. Everyman is accountable for what he does."

  He checked me there by an impatient wave of his hand.

  "Keep your opinion; I don't dispute it. You will see; you willsee.--Madame Pratolungo, the day when we had that private talk of ours inthe rectory summer-house, marks a memorable date in my calendar. My lasthonest struggle to be true to my poor Oscar ended with that day. Theefforts I have made since then have been little better than mereoutbreaks of despair. They have done nothing to help me against thepassion that has become the one feeling and the one misery of my life.Don't talk of resistance. All resistance stops at a certain point. Sincethe time I have told you of, _my_ resistance has reached its limits. Youhave heard how I struggled against temptation, as long as I could resistit. I have only to tell you how I have yielded to it now."

  The reckless, shameless composure with which he said that, began to setme against him once more. The perpetual shifts and contradictions in him,bewildered and irritated me. Quicksilver itself seemed to be lessslippery to lay hold of than this man.

  "Do you remember the day," he asked, "when Lucilla lost her temper, andreceived you so rudely at your visit to Browndown?"

  I made a sign in the affirmative.

  "You spoke, a little while since, of my personating Oscar to her. Ipersonated him, on the occasion I have just mentioned, for the firsttime. You were present and heard me. Did you care to speculate on themotives which made me impose myself on her as my brother?"

  "As well as I can remember," I answered, "I made the first guess thatoccurred to me. I thought you were indulging in a moment's mischievousamusement at Lucilla's expense.

  "I was indulging the passion that consumed me! I longed to feel theluxury of her touching me and being familiar with me, under theimpression that I was Oscar. Worse even than that, I wanted to try howcompletely I could impose on her--how easily I might marry her, if Icould only deceive you all, and take her away somewhere by herself. Thedevil was in possession of me. I don't know how it might have ended, ifOscar had not come in, and if Lucilla had not burst out as she did. Shedistressed me--she frightened me--she gave me back again to my betterself. I rushed, without stopping to prepare her, into the question of herrestoration to sight--as the only way of diverting her mind from the vileadvantage that I had taken of her blindness. That night, MadamePratolungo, I suffered pangs of self-reproach and remorse which wouldeven have satisfied _you._ At the very next opportunity that offered, Imade my atonement to Oscar. I supported his interests; I even put thewords he was to say to Lucilla into his lips.

  "When?" I broke in. "Where? How?"

  "When the two surgeons had left us. In Lucilla's sitting-room. In theheat of the discussion whether she should submit to the operation atonce--or whether she should marry Oscar first, and let Grosse try hisexperiment on her eyes at a later time. If you recall our conversation,you will remember that I did all I could to persuade Lucilla to marry mybrother before Grosse tried his experiment on her sight. Quite useless!You threw all the weight of your influence into the opposite side of thescale. I failed. It made no difference. I had done what I had done insheer despair: mere impulse--it didn't last. When the next temptationtried me, I behaved like a scoundrel--as you say."

  "I have said nothing," I answered shortly.

  "Very well--as you _think,_ then. Did you suspect me at last--when we metin the village, yesterday? Surely, even your eyes must have seen throughme on that occasion!"

  I answered silently, by an inclination of my head. I had no wish to driftinto another quarrel. Sorely as he was presuming on my endurance, Itried, in Lucilla's interests, to keep on friendly terms with him.

  "You concealed it wonderfully well," he went on, "when I tried to findout whether you had, or had not discovered me. You virtuous people arenot bad hands at deception, when it suits your interests to deceive. Ineedn't tell you what my temptation was yesterday. The first look of hereyes when they opened on the world; the first light of love and joybreaking on her heavenly face--what madness to expect me to let that lookfall on another man, that light show itself to other eyes! No livingbeing, adoring her as I adored her, would have acted otherwise than Idid. I could have fallen down on my knees and worshipped Grosse, when heinnocently proposed to me to take the very place in the room which I wasdetermined to occupy. You saw what I had in my mind! You did yourbest--and did it admirably--to defeat me. Oh, you pattern people--you canbe as shifty with your resources, when a cunning trick is to be played,as the worst of us! You saw how it ended. Fortune stood my friend at theeleventh hour; fortune can shine, like the sun, on the just and theunjust! _I_ had the first look of her eyes! _I_ felt the first light oflove and joy in her face falling on _me! I_ have had her arms round me,and her bosom on mine--"

  I could endure it no longer.

  "Open the door!" I said. "I am ashamed to be in the same room with you!"

  "I don't wonder at it," he answered. "You may well be ashamed of me. I amashamed of myself."

  There was nothing cynical in his tone, nothing insolent in his manner.The same man who had just gloried in that abominable way, in his victoryover innocence and misfortune, now spoke and looked like a man who washonestly ashamed of himself. If I could only have felt convinced that hewas mocking me, or playing the hypocrite with me, I should have knownwhat to do. But I say again--impossible as it seems--he was, beyond alldoubt, genuinely penitent for what he had said, the instant after he hadsaid it! With all my experience of humanity, and all my practice indealing with strange characters, I stopped mid-way between Nugent and thelocked door, thoroughly puzzled.

  "Do you believe me?" he asked.

  "I don't understand you," I answered.

  He took the key of the door out of his pocket, and put it on thetable--close to the chair from which I had just risen.

  "I lose my head when I talk of her, or think of her," he went on. "Iwould give everything I possess not to have said what I said just now. Nolanguage you can use is too strong to condemn it. The words burst out ofme: if Lucilla herself had been present, I couldn't have controlled them.Go, if you like. I have no right to keep you here, after behaving as Ihave done. There is the key, at your service. Only think first, beforeyou leave me. You had something to propose when you came in. You mightinfluence me--you might shame me into behaving like an honorable man. Doas you please. It rests with you."

  Which was I, a good Christian? or a contemptible fool? I went back oncemore to my chair, and determined to give him a last chance.

  "That's kind," he said. "You encourage me; you show me that I am worthtrying again. I had a generous impulse in this room, yesterday. It mighthave been something better than an impulse--if I had not had anothertemptation set straight in my way."

  "What temptation?" I asked. />
  "Oscar's letter has told you: Oscar himself put the temptation in my way.You must have seen it."

  "I saw nothing of the sort."

  "Doesn't he tell you that I offered to leave Dimchurch for ever? I meantit. I saw the misery in the poor fellow's face, when Grosse and I wereleading Lucilla out of the room. With my whole heart, I meant it. If hehad taken my hand, and had said Good-bye, I should have gone. He wouldn'ttake my hand. He insisted on thinking it over by himself. He came back,resolved to make the sacrifice, on his side----"

  "Why did you accept the sacrifice?"

  "Because he tempted me."

  "Tempted you?"

  "Yes! What else can you call it--when he offered to leave me free toplead my own cause with Lucilla? What else can you call it--when heshowed me a future life, which was a life with Lucilla? Poor, dear,generous fellow, he tempted me to stay when he ought to have encouragedme to go. How could I resist him? Blame the passion that has got me bodyand soul: don't blame _me!_"

  I looked at the book on the table--the book that he had been reading whenI entered the room. These sophistical confidences of his were nothing butRousseau at second hand. Good! If he talked false Rousseau, nothing wasleft for me but to talk genuine Pratolungo. I let myself go--I was justin the humour for it.

  "How can a clever man like you impose on yourself in that way?" I said."Your future with Lucilla? You have no future with Lucilla which is notshocking to think of. Suppose--you shall never do it, as long as Ilive--suppose you married her? Good heavens, what a miserable life itwould be for both of you! You love your brother. Do you think you couldever really know a moment's peace, with one reflection perpetuallyforcing itself on your mind? 'I have cheated Oscar out of the woman whomhe loved; I have wasted his life; I have broken his heart.' You couldn'tlook at her, you couldn't speak to her, you couldn't touch her, withoutfeeling it all embittered by that horrible reproach. And she? What sortof wife would she make you, when she knew how you had got her? I don'tknow which of the two she would hate most--you or herself. Not a manwould pass her in the street, who would not rouse the thought in her--'Iwonder whether _he_ has ever done anything as base as what my husband hasdone.' Not a married woman of her acquaintance, but would make her sickat heart with envy and regret. 'Whatever faults he may have, your husbandhasn't won you as my husband won me.' You happy? Your married lifeendurable? Come! I have saved a few pounds, since I have been withLucilla. I will lay you every farthing I possess, you two would beseparated by mutual consent before you had been six months man and wife._Now,_ which will you do? Will you start for the Continent, or stay here?Will you bring Oscar back, like an honorable man? or let him go, anddisgrace yourself for ever?"

  His eyes sparkled; his color rose. He sprang to his feet, and unlockedthe door. What was he going to do? To start for the Continent, or to turnme out of the house?

  He called to the servant.

  "James!"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Make the house fast when Madame Pratolungo and I have left it. I am notcoming back again."

  "Sir!"

  "Pack my portmanteau, and send it after me to-morrow, to Nagle's Hotel,London."

  He closed the door again, and came back to me.

  "You refused to take my hand when you came in," he said. "Will you takeit now? I leave Browndown when you leave it; and I won't come back againtill I bring Oscar with me.

  "Both hands!" I exclaimed--and took him by both hands. I could saynothing more. I could only wonder whether I was waking or sleeping; fitto be put into an asylum, or fit to go at large?

  "Come!" he said. "I will see you as far as the rectory gate.

  "You can't go to-night," I answered. "The last train has left hourssince."

  "I can! I can walk to Brighton, and get a bed there, and leave for Londonto-morrow morning. Nothing will induce me to pass another night atBrowndown. Stop! One question before I put the lamp out."

  "What is it?"

  "Did you do anything towards tracing Oscar, when you were in Londonto-day?"

  "I went to a lawyer, and made what arrangements with him I could."

  "Here is my pocket-book. Write me down his name and address."

  I wrote them. He extinguished the lamp, and led me into the passage. Theservant was standing there bewildered. "Good night, James. I am going tobring your master back to Browndown." With that explanation, he took uphis hat and stick, and gave me his arm. The moment after, we were out inthe dark valley, on our way to the village.

  On the walk back to the rectory, he talked with a feverish volubility andexcitement. Avoiding the slightest reference to the subject discussed atour strange and stormy interview, he returned, with tenfold confidence inhimself, to his old boastful assertion of the great things he was goingto do as a painter. The mission which called him to reconcile Humanitywith Nature; the superb scale on which he proposed to interpretsympathetic scenery for the benefit of suffering mankind; the primenecessity of understanding him, not as a mere painter, but as GrandConsoler in Art--I had it all over again, by way of satisfying my mind asto his prospects and occupations in his future life. It was only when westopped at the rectory-gate that he referred to what had passed betweenus--and even then, he only touched on the subject in the briefestpossible way.

  "Well?" he said. "Have I won back your old regard for me? Do you believethere is a fine side to be found in the nature of Nugent Dubourg? Man isa compound animal. You are a woman in ten thousand. Give me a kiss."

  He kissed me, foreign fashion, on both cheeks.

  "Now for Oscar!" he shouted cheerfully. He waved his hat, and disappearedin the darkness. I stood at the gate till the last rapid pit-pat of hisfeet died away in the silence of the night.

  An indescribable depression seized on my spirits. I began to doubt himagain, the instant I was alone.

  "Is there a time coming," I asked myself, "when all that I have doneto-night must be done over again?"

  I opened the rectory-gate. Mr. Finch intercepted me before I could getround to our side of the house. He held up before me, in solemn triumph,a manuscript of many pages.

  "My Letter," he said. "A Letter of Christian remonstrance, to NugentDubourg."

  "Nugent Dubourg has left Dimchurch."

  With that reply, I told the rector in as few words as possible how myvisit to Browndown had ended.

  Mr. Finch looked at his letter. All those pages of eloquence written fornothing? No! In the nature of things, _that_ could not possibly be. "Youhave done very well, Madame Pratolungo," he remarked, in his mostpatronizing manner. "Very well indeed, all things considered. _But,_ Idon't think I shall act wisely if I destroy this." He carefully locked uphis manuscript, and turned to me again with a mysterious smile. "Iventure to think," said Mr. Finch with mock humility, "My Letter will bewanted. Don't let me discourage you about Nugent Dubourg. Only let mesay:--Is he to be trusted?"

  It was said by a fool: it would never have been said at all, if he hadnot written his wonderful letter. Still, it echoed, with a painfulfidelity, the misgiving secretly present at that moment in my ownmind--and, more yet, it echoed the misgiving in Nugent's mind, the doubtof himself which his own lips had confessed to me in so many words. Iwished the rector good night, and went upstairs.

  Lucilla was in bed and asleep, when I softly opened her door.

  After looking for awhile at her lovely peaceful face, I was obliged toturn away. It was time I left the bedside, when the sight of her onlymade my spirits sink lower and lower. As I cast my last look at herbefore I closed the door, Mr. Finch's ominous question forced itself onme again. In spite of myself, I said to myself--

  "Is he to be trusted?"