"Keep your opinion; I don't dispute it. You will see; you will see.--Madame Pratolungo, the day when we had that private talk of ours in the rectory summer-house, marks a memorable date in my calendar. My last honest struggle to be true to my poor Oscar ended with that day. The efforts I have made since then have been little better than mere outbreaks of despair. They have done nothing to help me against the passion that has become the one feeling and the one misery of my life.
Don't talk of resistance. All resistance stops at a certain point. Since the time I have told you of, _my_ resistance has reached its limits. You have heard how I struggled against temptation, as long as I could resist it. I have only to tell you how I have yielded to it now."
The reckless, shameless composure with which he said that, began to set me against him once more. The perpetual shifts and contradictions in him, bewildered and irritated me. Quicksilver itself seemed to be less slippery to lay hold of than this man.
"Do you remember the day," he asked, "when Lucilla lost her temper, and received you so rudely at your visit to Browndown?"
I made a sign in the affirmative.
"You spoke, a little while since, of my personating Oscar to her. I personated him, on the occasion I have just mentioned, for the first time. You were present and heard me. Did you care to speculate on the motives which made me impose myself on her as my brother?"
"As well as I can remember," I answered, "I made the first guess that occurred to me. I thought you were indulging in a moment's mischievous amusement at Lucilla's expense.
"I was indulging the passion that consumed me! I longed to feel the luxury of her touching me and being familiar with me, under the impression that I was Oscar. Worse even than that, I wanted to try how completely I could impose on her--how easily I might marry her, if I could only deceive you all, and take her away somewhere by herself. The devil was in possession of me. I don't know how it might have ended, if Oscar had not come in, and if Lucilla had not burst out as she did. She distressed me--she frightened me--she gave me back again to my better self. I rushed, without stopping to prepare her, into the question of her restoration to sight--as the only way of diverting her mind from the vile advantage that I had taken of her blindness. That night, Madame Pratolungo, I suffered pangs of self-reproach and remorse which would even have satisfied _you._ At the very next opportunity that offered, I made my atonement to Oscar. I supported his interests; I even put the words he was to say to Lucilla into his lips "When?" I broke in. "Where? How?"