"Tell me one thing," I said. "What first made you suspect her?"
"You first made me suspect her, by what you said of her at Browndown," he
answered. "Now carry your memory back to the time I have already
mentioned in my letter--when she betrayed herself to you in the rectory
garden. Is it true that she said you would have fallen in love with
Nugent, if you had met him first instead of me?"
"It is true that she said it," I answered. "At a moment," I added, "when
her temper had got the better of her--and when mine had got the better of
me."
"Advance the hour a little," he went on, "to the time when she followed
you to Browndown. Was she still out of temper, when she made her excuses
to you?"
"No."
"Did she interfere, when Nugent took advantage of your blindness to make
you believe you were talking to me?"
"No."
"Was she out of temper then?"
I still defended her. "She might well have been angry," I said. "She had
made her excuses to me in the kindest manner; and I had received them
with the most unpardonable rudeness."
My defence produced no effect on him. He summed it up coolly so far. "She
compared me disadvantageously with Nugent; and she allowed Nugent to
personate me in speaking to you, without interfering to stop it. In both
these cases, her temper excuses and accounts for her conduct. Very good.
We may, or may not, differ so far. Before we go farther, let us--if we
can--agree on one unanswerable fact. Which of us two brothers was her
favorite, from the first?"
About _that,_ there could be no doubt. I admitted at once that Nugent was
her favorite. And more than this, I remembered accusing her myself of
never having done justice to Oscar from the first.
[Note.--See the sixteenth chapter, and Madame Pratolungo's remark,
warning you that you would hear of this circumstance again.--P.]
Oscar went on.
"Bear that in mind," he said. "And now let us get to the time when we
were assembled in your sitting-room, to discuss the subject of the
operation on your eyes. The question before us, as I remember it, was
this. Were you to marry me, before the operation? Or were you to keep me
waiting until the operation had been performed, and the cure was
complete? How did Madame Pratolungo decide on that occasion? She decided
against my interests; she encouraged you to delay our marriage."
I persisted in defending her. "She did that out of sympathy with me," I
said.
He surprised me by again accepting my view of the matter, without
attempting to dispute it.
"We will say she did it out of sympathy with you," he proceeded.
"Whatever her motives might be, the result was the same. My marriage to
you was indefinitely put off; and Madame Pratolungo voted for that
delay."
"And your brother," I added, "took the other side, and tried to persuade
me to marry you first. How can you reconcile that with what you have told
me----"
He interposed before I could say more. "Don't bring my brother into the
inquiry," he said. "My brother, at that time, could still behave like an
honorable man, and sacrifice his own feelings to his duty to me. Let us
strictly confine ourselves, for the present, to what Madame Pratolungo
said and did. And let us advance again to a few minutes later on the same
day, when our little domestic debate had ended. My brother was the first
to go. Then, you retired, and left Madame Pratolungo and me alone in the
room. Do you remember?"