two men (a gardener and an indoor servant) domiciled at Browndown to protect him—and felt no sense of security even in that. He was constantly dreaming that the ruffian with the "life-preserver" was attacking him again, or that he was lying bleeding on the floor and coaxing Jicks to venture within reach of his hand. If any of us hinted at his occupying himself once more with his favorite art, he stopped his ears, and entreated us not to renew his horrible associations with the past. He would not even look at his box of chasing tools. The doctor—summoned to say what was the matter with him—told us that his nervous system had been shaken, and frankly acknowledged that there was nothing to be done but to wait until time set it right again.
I am afraid I must confess that I myself took no very indulgent view of the patient's case.
It was his duty to exert himself—as I thought. He appeared to me to be too indolent to make a proper effort to better his own condition. Lucilla and I had more than one animated discussion about him. On a certain evening when we were at the piano gossiping, and playing in the intervals, she was downright angry with me for not sympathizing with her darling as unreservedly as she did. "I have noticed one thing, Madame Pratolungo," she said to me, with a flushed face and a heightened tone. "You have never done Oscar justice from the first."
(Mark those trifling words. The time is coming when you will hear of them again.)
The preparations for the contemplated marriage went on. The lawyers produced their sketch of the settlement; and Oscar wrote (to an address in New York, given to him by Nugent) to tell his brother of the approaching change in his life, and of the circumstances which had brought it about.
The marriage settlement was not shown to me; but, from certain signs and tokens, I guessed that Oscar's perfect disinterestedness on the question of money had been turned to profitable account by Oscar's future father-in-law. Reverend Finch was reported to have shed tears when he first read the document. And Lucilla came out of the study, after an interview with her father, more thoroughly and vehemently indignant than I had ever seen her yet. "Don't ask what is the matter!" she said to me between her teeth. "I am ashamed to tell you." When Oscar came in, a little later, she fell on her knees—literally on her knees—before him. Some overmastering agitation was in possession of her whole being, which made her, for the moment, reckless of what she said or did. "I worship you!" she burst out hysterically, kissing his hand. "You are the noblest of living men. I can never, never be worthy of you!" The interpretation of these high-flown sayings and doings was, to my mind, briefly this: Oscar's money in the rector's pocket, and the rector's daughter used as the means.
The interval expired; the weeks succeeded each other. All had been long since ready for the marriage—and still the marriage did not take place.
Far from becoming himself again, with time to help him—as the doctor had foretold—Oscar steadily grew worse. All the nervous symptoms (to use the medical phrase) which I have already described, strengthened instead of loosening their hold on him. He grew thinner and thinner, and paler and paler. Early in the month of November, we sent for the doctor again. The question to be put to him this time, was the question (suggested by Lucilla) of trying as a last remedy change of air.
Something—I forget what—delayed the arrival of our medical man. Oscar had given up all idea of seeing him that day, and had come to us at the rectory—when the doctor drove into Dimchurch. He was stopped before he went on to Browndown; and he and his patient saw each other alone in Lucilla's sitting-room.
They were a long time together. Lucilla, waiting with me in my bed-chamber, grew impatient. She begged me to knock at the sitting-room door, and inquire when she might be permitted to assist at the consultation.
I found doctor and patient standing together at the window, talking quietly. Evidently, nothing had passed to excite either of them in the smallest degree. Oscar looked a little pale and weary—but he, like his medical adviser, was perfectly composed.
"There is a young lady in the next room," I said, "who is getting anxious to hear what your consultation has ended in."
The doctor looked at Oscar, and smiled.
"There is really nothing to tell Miss Finch," he said. "Mr. Dubourg and I have gone all over the case again—and nothing new has come of it. His nervous system has not recovered its balance so soon as I expected. I am sorry—but I am not in the least alarmed. At his age, things are sure to come right in the end. He must be patient, and the young lady must be patient. I can say no more."
"Do you see any objection to his trying change of air?" I inquired.
"None, whatever! Let him go where he likes, and amuse himself as he likes. You are all of you a little disposed to take Mr. Dubourg's case too seriously. Except the nervous derangement (unpleasant enough in itself, I grant), there is really nothing the matter with him. He has not a trace of organic disease anywhere. The pulse," continued the doctor, laying his fingers lightly on Oscar's wrist, "is perfectly satisfactory. I never felt a quieter pulse in my life."
As the words passed his lips, a frightful contortion fastened itself on Oscar's face.
His eyes turned up hideously.
From head to foot his whole body was wrenched round, as if giant hands had twisted it, towards the right.
Before I could speak, he was in convulsions on the floor at his doctor's feet.
"Good God, what is this!" I cried out.
The doctor loosened his cravat, and moved away the furniture that was near him. That done, he waited—looking at the writhing figure on the floor.
"Can you do nothing more?" I asked.
He shook his head gravely. "Nothing more."
"What is it?"
"An epileptic fit."
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
The Doctor's Opinion
BEFORE another word had been exchanged between us, Lucilla entered the room. We looked at each other. If we could have spoken at that moment, I believe we should both have said, "Thank God, she is blind!"
"Have you all forgotten me?" she asked. "Oscar! where are you? What does the doctor say?"
She advanced into the room. In a moment more, she would have stumbled against the prostrate man still writhing on the floor. I laid my hand on her arm, and stopped her.
She suddenly caught my hand in hers. "Why did you tremble," she asked, "when you took me by the arm? Why are you trembling now?" Her delicate sense of touch was not to be deceived. I vainly denied that anything had happened: my hand had betrayed me. "There is something wrong!" she exclaimed, "Oscar has not answered me."
The doctor came to my assistance.
"There is nothing to be alarmed about," he said. "Mr. Dubourg is not very well to-day."
She turned on the doctor, with a sudden burst of anger.
"You are deceiving me!" she cried. "Something serious has happened to him. The truth! tell me the truth! Oh! it's shameful, it's heartless of both of you to deceive a wretched blind creature like me!"
The doctor still hesitated. I told her the truth.
