"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 am
ashamed 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 victory
over innocence and misfortune, now spoke and looked like a man who was
honestly ashamed of himself. If I could only have felt convinced that he
was mocking me, or playing the hypocrite with me, I should have known
what to do. But I say again--impossible as it seems--he was, beyond all
doubt, genuinely penitent for what he had said, the instant after he had
said it! With all my experience of humanity, and all my practice in
dealing with strange characters, I stopped mid-way between Nugent and the
locked 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 the
table--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. "I
would give everything I possess not to have said what I said just now. No
language you can use is too strong to condemn it. The words burst out of
me: 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 I
have done. There is the key, at your service. Only think first, before
you leave me. You had something to propose when you came in. You might
influence me--you might shame me into behaving like an honorable man. Do
as you please. It rests with you."
Which was I, a good Christian? or a contemptible fool? I went back once
more 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 worth
trying again. I had a generous impulse in this room, yesterday. It might
have been something better than an impulse--if I had not had another
temptation 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 meant
it. I saw the misery in the poor fellow's face, when Grosse and I were
leading Lucilla out of the room. With my whole heart, I meant it. If he
had taken my hand, and had said Good-bye, I should have gone. He wouldn't
take 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 to
plead my own cause with Lucilla? What else can you call it--when he
showed me a future life, which was a life with Lucilla? Poor, dear,
generous fellow, he tempted me to stay when he ought to have encouraged
me to go. How could I resist him? Blame the passion that has got me body
and soul: don't blame _me!_"
I looked at the book on the table--the book that he had been reading when
I entered the room. These sophistical confidences of his were nothing but
Rousseau at second hand. Good! If he talked false Rousseau, nothing was
left for me but to talk genuine Pratolungo. I let myself go--I was just
in 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 not
shocking to think of. Suppose--you shall never do it, as long as I
live--suppose you married her? Good heavens, what a miserable life it
would be for both of you! You love your brother. Do you think you could
ever really know a moment's peace, with one reflection perpetually
forcing itself on your mind? 'I have cheated Oscar out of the woman whom
he loved; I have wasted his life; I have broken his heart.' You couldn't
look at her, you couldn't speak to her, you couldn't touch her, without
feeling it all embittered by that horrible reproach. And she? What sort
of wife would she make you, when she knew how you had got her? I don't
know which of the two she would hate most--you or herself. Not a man
would pass her in the street, who would not rouse the thought in her--'I
wonder whether _he_ has ever done anything as base as what my husband has
done.' Not a married woman of her acquaintance, but would make her sick
at heart with envy and regret. 'Whatever faults he may have, your husband
hasn't won you as my husband won me.' You happy? Your married life
endurable? Come! I have saved a few pounds, since I have been with
Lucilla. I will lay you every farthing I possess, you two would be
separated 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, and
disgrace yourself for ever?"
His eyes sparkled; his color rose. He sprang to his feet, and unlocked
the door. What was he going to do? To start for the Continent, or to turn
me 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 not
coming 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 take
it now? I leave Browndown when you leave it; and I won't come back again
till I bring Oscar with me.
"Both hands!" I exclaimed--and took him by both hands. I could say
nothing more. I could only wonder whether I was waking or sleeping; fit
to 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 hours
since."
"I can! I can walk to Brighton, and get a bed there, and leave for London
to-morrow morning. Nothing will induce me to pass another night at
Browndown. Stop! One question before I put the lamp out."
"What is it?"
"Did you do anything towards tracing Oscar, when you were in London
to-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. The
servant was standing there bewildered. "Good night, James. I am going to
bring your master back to Browndown." With that explanation, he took up
his hat and stick, and gave me his arm. The moment after, we were out in
the dark valley, on our way to the village.
On the walk back to the rectory, he talked with a feverish volubility and
excitement. Avoiding the slightest reference to the subject discussed at
our strange and stormy interview, he returned, with tenfold confidence in
himself, to his old boastful assertion of the great things he was going
to do as a painter. The mission which called him to reconcile Humanity
with Nature; the superb scale on which he proposed to interpret
sympathetic scenery for the benefit of suffering mankind; the prime
necessity of understanding him, not as a mere painter, but as Grand
Consoler in Art--I had it all over again, by way of satisfying my mind as
to his prospects and occupations in his future life. It was only when we
stopped at the rectory-gate that he referred to what had passed between
us--and even then, he only touched on the subject in the briefest
possible way.
"Well?" he said. "Have I won back your old regard for me? Do you believe
there is a fine side to be found in the nature of Nugent Dubourg? Man is
a 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 disappeared
in the darkness. I stood at the gate till the last rapid pit-pat of his
feet died away in the silence of the night.
An indescribable depression seized on my spirits. I began to doubt him
again, the instant I was alone.
"Is there a time coming," I asked myself, "when all that I have done
to-night must be done over again?"
I opened the rectory-gate. Mr. Finch intercepted me before I could get
round 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 Nugent
Dubourg."
"Nugent Dubourg has left Dimchurch."
With that reply, I told the rector in as few words as possible how my
visit to Browndown had ended.
Mr. Finch looked at his letter. All those pages of eloquence written for
nothing? No! In the nature of things, _that_ could not possibly be. "You
have done very well, Madame Pratolungo," he remarked, in his most
patronizing manner. "Very well indeed, all things considered. _But,_ I
don't think I shall act wisely if I destroy this." He carefully locked up
his manuscript, and turned to me again with a mysterious smile. "I
venture to think," said Mr. Finch with mock humility, "My Letter will be
wanted. Don't let me discourage you about Nugent Dubourg. Only let me
say:--Is he to be trusted?"
It was said by a fool: it would never have been said at all, if he had
not written his wonderful letter. Still, it echoed, with a painful
fidelity, the misgiving secretly present at that moment in my own
mind--and, more yet, it echoed the misgiving in Nugent's mind, the doubt
of himself which his own lips had confessed to me in so many words. I
wished 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 to
turn away. It was time I left the bedside, when the sight of her only
made my spirits sink lower and lower. As I cast my last look at her
before I closed the door, Mr. Finch's ominous question forced itself on
me again. In spite of myself, I said to myself--
"Is he to be trusted?"