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Having assumed the responsibility of putting the serious question of Lucilla's sight scientifically to the test, he appeared to be resolved to pause there, and to interfere no further in the affair after it had passed its first stage.
Godolphin, unconscious of all around, and muttering to himself, leaped on his steed: the fire glinted from the coursers hoofs; and thus the last lord of that knightly race bade farewell to his father's halls. Those words which he had muttered, and which his favourite servant caught and superstitiously remembered, were the words in Lucilla's note "The hour has arrived!"
She proposed of her own accord that I should go alone to Browndown to see Oscar on my return. It is only doing common justice to myself to say that this was a relief to me. If she had had the use of her eyes, my conscience would have been easy enough but I shrank from deceiving my dear blind girl, even in the slightest things. So, with Lucilla's knowledge and approval, I went to Oscar alone.
Godolphin did not undervalue Lucilla's pure and devoted heart; but he knew that the only sure antidote against the dangers of the world is the knowledge of the world. There was nothing in Lucilla that ever promised to attain that knowledge; her very nature seemed to depend on her ignorance of the nature of others. But I do not seek to excuse it, nor did he wholly excuse it to himself.
She won't trouble herself long about a change in me that she can neither feel nor see." Ought I to have warned him here of Lucilla's inveterate prejudice, and of the difficulty there might be in reconciling her to the change in him when she heard of it?
"Come!" he said, trying to take Lucilla back into her own room. She shook her head, and tightened her hold on Nugent's arm. "You take me," she whispered. "As far as the door." I again attempted to stop it; and again the German put me back. "Not to-day!" he said sternly. With that, he made a sign to Nugent, and placed himself on Lucilla's other side. In silence, the two men led her out of the room.
She ran into Lucilla's arms, and said, in a voice which she meant for a whisper, but loud enough to be heard by the whole company, "Do, dear Lucilla, forgive me, I will never say another word about the curricle, and you sha'n't go to the Priory since you don't like it."
THE interval-day before the second appearance of Herr Grosse, and the experiment on Lucilla's sight that was to follow it, was marked by two incidents which ought to be noticed in this place. The first incident was the arrival, early in the morning, of another letter addressed to me privately by Oscar Dubourg.
You were represented to have been the man who had suggested to Egnatius Capito the formation of his conspiracy against Commodus; and to have planned for him the inclusion in it of all undetected survivors of the members of Lucilla's abortive conspiracy of the year before; to have offered yourself as the most likely man to succeed in assassinating Commodus, as he held you in high regard for some exploit in some roadside affray in Sabinum; to have pretended illness as a cloak for your machinations.
As the event turned out, Herr Grosse was beforehand with him. Once more we heard his broken English shouting, "Hi-hi-hoi! hoi-hi! hoi-hi!" Once more, we beheld his huge silk handkerchief waving at the window. Mercy! how we did abuse Mr. Sebright, when we were all reunited again in Lucilla's room! The first excitement over, we had our difficulties to contend with next.
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