"I don't want to go away," Lucilla went on; "I don't want to leave him. All I ask for, is a little more time. Time must help me to get back again to my old self. My blind days have been the days of my whole life. Can a few weeks of sight have deprived me of the feelings which have been growing in me for years? I won't believe it! I can find my way about the house; I can tell things by my touch; I can do all that I did in my blindness, just as well as ever, now I am blind again. The feeling for him will come back to me like the rest. Only give me time! only give me time!"
At the last word, she started to her feet in sudden alarm. "There is some one in the room," she said. "Some one who is crying! Who is it?"
Oscar was close to us. The tears were falling fast over his cheeks—the one faint sobbing breath which had escaped him had caught my ear as well as Lucilla's. I took his hand in one of my hands; and I took Lucilla's hand in the other. For good or for evil, the result rested with God's mercy. The time had come.
"Who is it?" Lucilla repeated impatiently.
"Try if you can tell, my love, without asking me."
With those words, I put her hand in Oscar's hand—and stood close, watching her face.
For one awful moment, when she first felt the familiar touch, the blood left her cheeks. Her blind eyes dilated fearfully. She stood petrified. Then, with a long low cry—a cry of breathless rapture—she flung her arms passionately round his neck. The life flowed back into her face; her lovely smile just trembled on her parted lips; her breath came faint and quick and fluttering. In soft tones of ecstasy, with her lips on his cheek, she murmured the delicious words:
"Oh, Oscar! I know you once more!"