"Lucilla has told you that there is some hope for me at last. What I
write in this place is written without her knowledge--for your private
ear only. Take the first opportunity you can find of coming to see me at
Browndown, without allowing Lucilla to hear of it. I have a great favor
to ask of you. My happiness depends on your granting it. You shall know
what it is, when we meet.
"OSCAR."
This postscript puzzled me.
It was not in harmony with the implicit confidence which I had observed
Oscar to place habitually in Lucilla. It jarred on my experience of his
character, which presented him to me as the reverse of a reserved
secretive man. His concealment of his identity, when he first came among
us, had been a forced concealment--due entirely to his horror of being
identified with the hero of the trial. In all the ordinary relations of
life, he was open and unreserved to a fault. That he could have a secret
to keep from Lucilla, and to confide to me, was something perfectly
unintelligible to my mind. It highly excited my curiosity; it gave me a
new reason for longing to get back.
I was able to make all my arrangements, and to bid adieu to my father and
my sisters on the evening of the twenty-third. Early on the morning of
the twenty-fourth, I left Paris, and reached Dimchurch in time for the
final festivities in celebration of Christmas Eve.
The first hour of Christmas Day had struck on the clock in our own pretty
sitting-room, before I could prevail upon Lucilla to let me rest, after
my journey, in bed. She was now once more the joyous light-hearted
creature of our happier time; and she had so much to say to me, that not
even her father himself (on this occasion) could have talked her down.
The next morning she paid the penalty of exciting herself over-night.
When I went into her room, she was suffering from a nervous head-ache,
and was not able to rise at her usual hour. She proposed of her own
accord that I should go alone to Browndown to see Oscar on my return. It
is only doing common justice to myself to say that this was a relief to
me. If she had had the use of her eyes, my conscience would have been
easy enough--but I shrank from deceiving my dear blind girl, even in the
slightest things.
So, with Lucilla's knowledge and approval, I went to Oscar alone.
I found him fretful and anxious--ready to flame out into one of his
sudden passions, on the smallest provocation. Not the slightest
reflection of Lucilla's recovered cheerfulness appeared in Lucilla's
lover.
"Has she said anything to you about the new doctor?" were the first words
he addressed to me.
"She has told me that she feels the greatest faith in him," I answered.
"She firmly believes that he speaks the truth in saying he can cure you."
"Did she show any curiosity to know _how_ he is curing me?"
"Not the slightest curiosity that I could see. It is enough for her that
you _are_ to be cured. The rest she leaves to the doctor."
My last answer appeared to relieve him. He sighed, and leaned back in his
chair. "That's right!" he said to himself. "I'm glad to hear that."
"Is the doctor's treatment of you a secret?" I asked.
"It must be a secret from Lucilla," he said, speaking very earnestly. "If
she attempts to find it out, she must be kept--for the present, at
least--from all knowledge of it. Nobody has any influence over her but
you. I look to you to help me."
"Is this the favor you had to ask me?"
"Yes."
"Am I to know the secret of the medical treatment?"
"Certainly! How can I expect you to help me unless you know what a
serious reason there is for keeping Lucilla in the dark."
He laid a strong emphasis on the two words "serious reason." I began to
feel a little uneasy. I had never yet taken the slightest advantage of my
poor Lucilla's blindness. And here was her promised husband--of all the
people in the world--proposing to me to keep her in the dark.
"Is the new doctor's treatment dangerous?" I inquired.
"Not in the least."
"Is it not so certain as he has led Lucilla to believe?"
"It is quite certain.
"Did the other doctors know of it?"
"Yes."
"Why did they not try it?"
"They were afraid."
"Afraid? What _is_ the treatment?"
"Medicine."
"Many medicines? or one?"
"Only one."
"What is the name of it?"
"Nitrate of Silver."