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The recovery of your sight appears to me, my dear, to be quite complete." "Do you want me to be cured, aunt, because you want to get away?" I asked. "Are you weary of Ramsgate?" Miss Batchford's quick temper flashed at me out of Miss Batchford's bright old eyes. "I am weary of keeping a letter of yours," she answered, with a look of disgust. "A letter of mine!" I exclaimed. "Yes.
I go back by the next train, in an hour's time. Good morning, Mr. Nugent. If you are a wise man, you will meet me at the station." After this, the accounts vary. Nugent's statement asserts that he accompanied Grosse on his way back to Miss Batchford's lodging, arguing the matter with him, and only leaving him at the door of the house.
In this same house, Oscar was also to be accommodated, when the doctors sanctioned his removal to London. It was now thought likely if all went well that the marriage might be celebrated at the end of the three months, from Miss Batchford's residence in town. Three days before the date of Lucilla's departure, these plans so far as I was concerned in them were all over-thrown.
I reached my train before the hour of starting, and arrived in London with a sufficient margin of time to spare. Resolved to make sure that no possible mischance could occur, I drove to Miss Batchford's house, and saw the cabman give my letter into the servant's hands. It was a bitter moment when I found myself pulling down my veil, in the fear that Lucilla might be at the window and see me!
However brutally it may have been given, it is a medical opinion and as such I am bound to communicate it." Knowing but too well how bitterly my aunt's aversion to him is reciprocated by my father, I did my best to combat Miss Batchford's resolution without making matters worse by telling her what my motives really were.
However, the course which she ended in taking on receipt of the letter which you have just read, is sufficiently indicated by a note of Nugent's writing, left at Miss Batchford's residence at Ramsgate by a porter from the railway. After-events make it necessary to preserve this note also. It runs thus:
The wicked moment gone, I was good again that is to say, I was ashamed of myself. I smoothed out the letter, and looked eagerly for news of Lucilla's health. If the news was favorable, my letter committed to Miss Batchford's care must have been shown to Lucilla by this time; must have exposed Nugent's abominable personation of his brother; and must have thus preserved her for Oscar.
Let us say, if possible, a week." "You must be back, no matter what happen, before the new year." "Why?" "I have my yearly visit to pay to my aunt. It has been twice put off. I must absolutely go to London on the last day of the old year, and stay there my allotted three months in Miss Batchford's house.
On that occasion, I made one more aristocrat tremble. I also closed Miss Batchford's door on me for the rest of my life. No matter! The day is coming when the Batchford branch of humanity will not possess a door to close. All Europe is drifting nearer and nearer to the Pratolungo programme. Cheer up, my brothers without land, and my sisters without money in the Funds!
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