I observed Oscar, next. His eyes were fixed on Lucilla--absorbed in watching her. He spoke to Nugent, without looking at him; animated, as it seemed, by a vague fear for Lucilla, which was slowly developing into a vague fear for himself "Mind what you are doing!" he said. "Look at her, Nugent--look at her."
Nugent approached his brother, circuitously, so as to place Oscar between Lucilla and himself.
"Have I offended you?" he asked.
Oscar looked at him in surprise. "Offended with you," he answered, "after what you have forgiven, and what you have suffered, for my sake?"
"Still," persisted the other, "there is something wrong."
"I am startled, Nugent."
"Startled--by what?"
"By the question you have just put to Lucilla."
"You will understand me, and she will understand me, directly."
While those words were passing between the brothers, my attention remained fixed on Lucilla. Her head had turned slowly towards the new position which Nugent occupied when he spoke to Oscar. With this exception, no other movement had escaped her. No sense of what the two men were saying to each other seemed to have entered her mind. To all appearance she had heard nothing, since Nugent had started the first doubt in her whether she was blind for life.
"Speak to her," I said. "For God's sake, don't keep her in suspense, _now!_"
Nugent spoke.
"You have had reason to be offended with me, Lucilla. Let me, if I can, give you reason to be grateful to me, before I have done. When I was in New York, I became acquainted with a German surgeon, who had made a reputation and a fortune in America by his skill in treating diseases of the eye. He had been especially successful in curing cases of blindness given up as hopeless by other surgeons. I mentioned your case to him. He could say nothing positively (as a matter of course) without examining you. All he could do was to place his services at my disposal, when he came to England. I for one, Lucilla, decline to consider you blind for life, until this skillful man sees no more hope for you than the English surgeons have seen. If there is the faintest chance still left of restoring your sight, his is, I firmly believe, the one hand that can do it. He is now in England. Say the word--and I will bring him to Dimchurch."