"The servant is no doubt waiting down-stairs," I said. "Go on."
"But for that good creature," Lucilla resumed, "I should never have got here. She brought me your letter, and read it to me, and wrote my reply. I arranged with her to slip out at the first opportunity. One chance was in our favor—we had only the cousin to keep an eye on us. Oscar was not in the house."
She suddenly checked herself at the last word. A slight sound at the lower end of the room, which had passed unnoticed by me, had caught her delicate ear, "What is that noise?" she asked. "Anybody in the room with us?"
I looked up once more. While she was talking of the false Oscar, the true Oscar was standing listening to her, at the other end of the room.
When he discovered that I was looking at him, he entreated me by a gesture not to betray his presence. He had evidently heard what we had been saying to each other, before I detected him—for he touched his eyes, and lifted his hands pityingly in allusion to Lucilla's blindness. Whatever his mood might be, that melancholy discovery must surely have affected him—Lucilla's influence over him now, could only be an influence for good. I signed to him to remain—and told Lucilla that there was nothing to be alarmed about. She went on.
"Oscar left us for London early this morning," she said. "Can you guess what he has gone for? He has gone to get the Marriage License—he has given notice of the marriage at the church. My last hope is in you. In spite of everything that I can say to him, he has fixed the day for the twenty-first—in two days more! I have done all I could to put it off; I have insisted on every possible delay. Oh, if you knew——!" Her rising agitation stifled her utterance at the moment. "I mustn't waste the precious minutes; I must get back before Oscar returns," she went on, rallying again. "Oh, my old friend, you are never at a loss; you always know what to do! Find me some way of putting off my marriage. Suggest something which will take them by surprise, and force them to give me time!"
I looked towards the lower end of the room. Listening in breathless interest, Oscar had noiselessly advanced half-way towards us. At a sign from me, he checked himself and came no farther.
"Do you really mean, Lucilla, that you no longer love him?" I said.
"I can tell you nothing about it," she answered—"except that some dreadful change has come over me. While I had my sight, I could partly account for it—I believed that the new sense had made a new being of me. But now I have lost my sight again—now I am once more what I have been all my life—still the same horrible insensibility possesses me. I have so little feeling for him, that I sometimes find it hard to persuade myself that he really is Oscar. You know how I used to adore him. You know how enchanted I should once have been to marry him. Think of what I must suffer, feeling towards him as I feel now!"
I looked up again. Oscar had stolen nearer; I could see his face plainly. The good influence of Lucilla was beginning to do its good work! I saw the tears rising in his eyes; I saw love and pity taking the place of hatred and revenge. The Oscar of my old recollections was standing before me once more!