Part 37 (1/2)
”I don't believe in Herr Grosse,” he said faintly, ”as you believe in him.”
Lucilla rose, bitterly disappointed, and opened the door that led into her own room.
”If it had been you who were blind,” she answered, ”_your_ belief would have been _my_ belief, and _your_ hope _my_ hope. It seems I have expected too much from you. Live and learn! live and learn!”
She went into her room, and closed the door on us. I could bear it no longer. I got up, with the firm resolution in me to follow her, and say the words which he had failed to say for himself. My hand was on the door, when I was suddenly pulled back from it by Oscar. I turned, and faced him in silence.
”No!” he said, with his eyes fixed on mine, and his hand still on my arm.
”If I don't tell her, n.o.body shall tell her for me.”
”She shall be deceived no longer--she must, and shall, hear it,” I answered. ”Let me go!”
”You have given me your promise to wait for my leave before you open your lips. I forbid you to open your lips.”
I snapped the fingers of my hand that was free, in his face. ”_That_ for my promise!” I said. ”Your contemptible weakness is putting her happiness in peril as well as yours.” I turned my head towards the door, and called to her. ”Lucilla!”
His hand closed fast on my arm. Some lurking devil in him that I had never seen yet, leapt up and looked at me out of his eyes.
”Tell her,” he whispered savagely between his teeth; ”and I will contradict you to your face! If you are desperate, I am desperate too. I don't care what meanness I am guilty of! I will deny it on my honor; I will deny it on my oath. You heard what she said about you at Browndown.
She will believe _me_ before _you._”
Lucilla opened her door, and stood waiting on the threshold.
”What is it?” she asked quietly.
A moment's glance at Oscar warned me that he would do what he had threatened, if I persisted in my resolution. The desperation of a weak man is, of all desperations, the most unscrupulous and the most unmanageable--when it is once roused. Angry as I was, I shrank from degrading him, as I must now have degraded him, if I matched my obstinacy against his. In mercy to both of them, I gave way.
”I may be going out, my dear, before it gets dark,” I said to Lucilla.
”Can I do anything for you in the village?”
”Yes,” she said, ”if you will wait a little, you can take a letter for me to the post.”
She went back into her room, and closed the door.
I neither looked at Oscar, nor spoke to him, when we were alone again. He was the first who broke the silence.
”You have remembered your promise to me,” he said. ”You have done well.”
”I have nothing more to say to you,” I answered. ”I shall go to my own room.”
His eyes followed me uneasily as I walked to the door.
”I shall speak to her,” he muttered doggedly, ”at my own time.”
A wise woman would not have allowed him to irritate her into saying another word. Alas! I am not a wise woman--that is to say, not always.
”Your own time?” I repeated with the whole force of my contempt. ”If you don't own the truth to her before the German surgeon comes back, your time will have gone by for ever. He has told us in the plainest terms--when once the operation is performed, nothing must be said to agitate or distress her, for months afterwards. The preservation of her tranquillity is the condition of the recovery of her sight. You will soon have an excuse for your silence, Mr. Oscar Dubourg!”
The tone in which I said those last words stung him to some purpose.