The audacity of that last question fairly took away my breath. "You cruelly helped to deceive her," I answered indignantly. "You basely encouraged your brother in his fatal policy of silence."
He looked at me with an angry amazement on his side which more than equaled the angry amazement on mine.
"So much for the delicate perception of a woman!" he exclaimed. "So much for the wonderful tact which is the peculiar gift of the sex! You can see no motive but a bad motive in my sacrificing myself for Oscar's sake?"
I began to discern faintly that there might have been another than a bad motive for his conduct. But—well! I dare say I was wrong; I resented the tone he was taking with me; I would have owned I had made a mistake to anybody else in the world; I wouldn't own it to him. There!
"Look back for one moment," he resumed, in quieter and gentler tones. "See how hardly you have judged me! I seized the opportunity—I swear to you this is true—I seized the opportunity of making myself an object of horror to her, the moment I heard of the mistake that she had made. I felt in myself that I was growing less and less capable of avoiding her, and I caught at the chance of making her avoid me; I did that—and I did more! I entreated Oscar to let me leave Dimchurch. He appealed to me, in the name of our love for each other, to remain. I couldn't resist him. Where do you see signs of the conduct of a scoundrel in all this? Would a scoundrel have betrayed himself to you a dozen times over—as I did in that talk of ours in the summer-house? I remember saying in so many words, I wished I had never come to Dimchurch. What reason but one could there be for my saying that? How is it that you never even asked me what I meant?"
"You forget," I interposed, "that I had no opportunity of asking you. Lucilla interrupted us, and diverted my attention to other things. What do you mean by putting me on my defence in this way?" I went on, more and more irritated by the tone he was taking with me. "What right have you to judge my conduct?"
He looked at me with a kind of vacant surprise.
"Have I been judging your conduct?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Perhaps I was thinking, if you had seen my infatuation in time you might have checked it in time. No!" he exclaimed, before I could answer him. "Nothing could have checked it—nothing will cure it but my death. Let us try to agree. I beg your pardon if I have offended you. I am willing to take a just view of your conduct. Will you take a just view of mine?"