"God knows," I said, "you have convinced me--obstinate as I am. Let us
try to think of nothing now but of the prospect of your being cured. What
do you wish me to do?"
"You have great influence over Lucilla," he said. "If she expresses any
curiosity, in future conversations with you, about the effect of the
medicine, check her at once. Keep her as ignorant of it as she is now!"
"Why?"
"Why! If she knows what you know, how will she feel? Shocked and
horrified, as you felt. What will she do? She will come straight here,
and try, as you have tried, to persuade me to give it up. Is that true or
not?"
(Impossible to deny that it was true.)
"I am so fond of her," he went on, "that I can refuse her nothing. She
would end in making me give it up. The instant her back was turned, I
should repent my own weakness, and return to the medicine. Here is a
perpetual struggle in prospect, for a man who is already worn out. Is it
desirable, after what you have just seen, to expose me to that?"
It would have been useless cruelty to expose him to it. How could I do
otherwise than consent to make his sacrifice of himself--his _necessary_
sacrifice--as easy as I could? At the same time, I implored him to
remember one thing.
"Mind," I said, "we can never hope to keep her in ignorance of the change
in you, when the change comes. Sooner or later, some one will let the
secret out."
"I only want it to be concealed from her while the disfigurement of me is
in progress," he answered. "When nothing she can say or do will alter
it--I will tell her myself. She is so happy in the hope of my recovery!
What good can be gained by telling her beforehand of the penalty that I
pay for my deliverance? My ugly color will never terrify my poor darling.
As for other persons, I shall not force myself on the view of the world.
It is my one wish to live out of the world. The few people about me will
soon get reconciled to my face. Lucilla will set them the example. She
won't trouble herself long about a change in me that she can neither feel
nor see."
Ought I to have warned him here of Lucilla's inveterate prejudice, and of
the difficulty there might be in reconciling her to the change in him
when she heard of it? I dare say I ought, I daresay I was to blame in
shrinking from inflicting new anxieties and new distresses on a man who
had already suffered so much. The simple truth is--I could not do it.
Would you have done it? Ah, if you would, I hope I may never come in
contact with you. What a horrid wretch you must be! The end of it was
that I left the house--pledged to keep Lucilla in ignorance of the cost
at which Oscar had determined to purchase his cure, until Oscar thought
fit to enlighten her himself.