"Let me suggest, Lucilla," he said, "that it is your duty to look at the other side of the question, before you make up your mind. In the first place, it is surely hard on Oscar to postpone the wedding-day again. In the second place, clever as he is, Herr Grosse is not infallible. It is just possible that the operation may fail, and that you may find you have put off your marriage for three months, to no purpose. Do think of it! If you defer the operation on your eyes till after your marriage, you conciliate all interests, and you only delay by a month or so the time when you may see."
Lucilla impatiently shook her head.
"If you were blind," she answered, "you would not willingly delay by a single hour the time when you might see. You ask me to think of it. I ask you to think of the years I have lost. I ask you to think of the exquisite happiness I shall feel, when Oscar and I are standing at the altar, if I can see the husband to whom I am giving myself for life! Put it off for a month? You might as well ask me to die for a month. It is like death to be sitting here blind, and to know that a man is within a few hours' reach of me who can give me my sight! I tell you all plainly, if you go on opposing me in this, I don't answer for myself. If Herr Grosse is not recalled to Dimchurch before the end of the week—I am my own mistress; I will go to him in London!"
Both the brothers looked at me.
"Have you nothing to say, Madame Pratolungo?" asked Nugent.
Oscar was too painfully agitated to speak. He softly crossed to my chair; and, kneeling by me, put my hand entreatingly to his lips.
You may consider me a heartless woman if you will. I remained entirely unmoved even by this. Lucilla's interests and my interests, you will observe, were now one. I had resolved, from the first, that she should not be married in ignorance of which was the man who was disfigured by the blue face. If she took the course which would enable her to make that discovery for herself, at the right time, she would spare me the performance of a very painful and ungracious duty—and she would marry, as I was determined she should marry, with a full knowledge of the truth. In this position of affairs, it was no business of mine to join the twin-brothers in trying to make her alter her resolution. On the contrary, it was my business to confirm her in it.
"I can't see that I have any right to interfere," I said. "In Lucilla's place—after one and twenty years of blindness—I too should sacrifice every other consideration to the consideration of recovering my sight."
Oscar instantly rose, offended with me, and walked away to the window. Lucilla's face brightened gratefully. "Ah!" she said, "you understand me!" Nugent, in his turn, left his chair. He had confidently calculated, in his brother's interests, on Lucilla's marriage preceding the recovery of Lucilla's sight. That calculation was completely baffled. The marriage would now depend on the state of Lucilla's feelings, after she had penetrated the truth for herself. I saw Nugent's face darken, as he walked to the door.
"Madame Pratolungo," he said, "you may, one day, regret the course that you have just taken. Do as you please, Lucilla—I have no more to say."