"Lucilla!"
"Don't be angry with me. I am coming to my senses again. Nobody knows what folly, what madness it is, better than I do. I have a will of my own: suffer as I may, I promise to break myself of it this time. I can't, and won't let Oscar's brother see that he is an object of horror to me." She stopped once more, and gave me a little propitiatory kiss. "Blame my blindness, dear, don't blame me. If I could only see—! Ah, how can I make you understand me, you who don't live in the dark?" She went on a few paces, silent and thoughtful—and then spoke again. "You won't laugh at me, if I say something?"
"You know I won't."
"Suppose yourself to be in bed at night."
"Yes?"
"I have heard people say that they have sometimes woke in the middle of the night, on a sudden, without any noise to disturb them. And they have fancied (without anything particular to justify it) that there was something, or somebody, in the dark room. Has that ever happened to you?"
"Certainly, my love.—It has happened to most people to fancy what you say, when their nerves are a little out of order."
"Very well. There is my fancy, and there are my nerves. When it happened to you, what did you do?"
"I struck a light, and satisfied myself that I was wrong."
"Suppose yourself without candle or matches, in a night without end, left alone with your fancy in the dark. There you have Me! It would not be easy, would it, to satisfy yourself; if you were in that helpless condition? You might suffer under it—very unreasonably—and yet very keenly for all that." She lifted her little cane, with a sad smile. "You might be almost as great a fool as poor Lucilla, and clear the air before you with this!"