Part 76 (1/2)

”Nugent!” he said. ”Are you the same dear good brother who saved me from dying on the scaffold, and who cheered my hard life afterwards? Are you the same bright, clever, n.o.ble fellow that I was always so fond of, and so proud of?”

He paused, and removed his brother's hat. With careful, caressing hand, he parted his brother's ruffled hair over the forehead. Nugent's head sank lower. His face was distorted, his hands were clenched, in the dumb agony of remembrance which that tender voice and that kind hand had set loose in him. Oscar gave him time to recover himself: Oscar spoke next to me.

”You know Nugent,” he said. ”You remember when we first met, my telling you that Nugent was an angel? You saw for yourself, when he came to Dimchurch, how kindly he helped me; how faithfully he kept my secrets; what a true friend he was. Look at him--and you will feel, as I do, that we have misunderstood and misinterpreted him, in some monstrous way.” He turned again to Nugent. ”I daren't tell you,” he went on, ”what I have heard about you, and what I have believed about you, and what vile unbrotherly thoughts I have had of being revenged on you. Thank G.o.d, they are gone! My dear fellow, I look back at them--now I see you--as I might look back at a horrible dream. How _can_ I see you, Nugent, and believe that you have been false to me? You, a villain who has tried to rob poor Me of the only woman in the world who cares for me! You, so handsome and so popular, who may marry any woman you like! It can't be. You have drifted innocently into some false position without knowing it. Defend yourself. No. Let me defend you. You shan't humble yourself to anybody.

Tell me how you have really acted towards Lucilla, and towards me--and leave it to your brother to set you right with everybody. Come, Nugent!

lift up your head--and tell me what I shall say.”

Nugent lifted his head, and looked at Oscar.

Ghastly as his face was, I saw something in his eyes, when he first fixed them on his brother, which again reminded me of past days--the days when he had joined us at Dimchurch, and when he used to talk of ”poor Oscar”

in the tender, light-hearted way that first won me. I thought once more of the memorable night-interview between us at Browndown, when Oscar had left England. Again, I called to mind the signs which had told of the n.o.bler nature of the man pleading with him. Again, I remembered the remorse which had moved him to tears--the effort he had made in my presence to atone for past misdoing, and to struggle for the last time against the guilty pa.s.sion that possessed him. Was the nature which could feel that remorse utterly depraved? Was the man who had made that effort--the last of many that had gone before it--irredeemably bad?

”Wait!” I whispered to Lucilla, trembling and weeping in my arms. ”He will deserve our sympathy; he will win our pardon and our pity yet!”

”Come!” Oscar repeated. ”Tell me what I shall say.”

Nugent drew from his pocket a sheet of paper with writing on it.

”Say,” he answered, ”that I gave notice of your marriage at the church here-and that I went to London and got you _this._”

He handed the sheet of paper to his brother. It was the Marriage License, taken out in his brother's name.

”Be happy, Oscar,” he added. ”_You_ deserve it.”

He threw one arm in his old easy protecting way round his brother. His hand, as he did this, touched the breast-pocket of Oscar's coat. Before it was possible to stop him, his dexterous fingers had opened the pocket, and had taken from it a little toy-pistol with a chased silver handle of Oscar's own workmans.h.i.+p.

”Was this for me?” he asked, with a faint smile. ”My poor boy! you could never have done it, could you?” He kissed Oscar's dark cheek, and put the pistol into his own pocket. ”The handle is your work,” he said. ”I shall take it as your present to me. Return to Browndown when you are married.

I am going to travel again. You shall hear from me before I leave England. G.o.d bless you, Oscar. Good-bye.”

He put his brother back from him with a firm and gentle hand. I attempted to advance with Lucilla, and speak to him. Something in his face--looking at me out of his mournful eyes, calm, stern, and superhuman, like a look of doom--warned me back from him, and filled me with the foreboding that I should see him no more. He walked to the door, and opened it--turned--and, fixing his farewell look on Lucilla, saluted us silently with a bend of his head. The door closed on him softly. In a few minutes only from the time when he had entered the room, he had left us again--and left us for ever.

We waited, spell-bound--we could not speak. The void that he left behind him was dreary and dreadful. I was the first who moved. In silence, I led Lucilla back to our seat on the sofa, and beckoned to Oscar to go to her in my place.

This done, I left them--and went out to meet Lucilla's father, on his return to the hotel. I wished to prevent him from disturbing them. After what had happened, it was good for those two to be alone.

EPILOGUE

Madame Pratolungo's Last Words

TWELVE years have pa.s.sed since the events occurred which it has been the business of these pages to relate. I am at my desk; looking idly at all the leaves of writing which my pen has filled, and asking myself if there is more yet to add, before I have done.

There is more--not much.

Oscar and Lucilla claim me first. Two days after they were restored to each other at Sydenham, they were married at the church in that place. It was a dull wedding. n.o.body was in spirits but Mr. Finch. We parted in London. The bride and bridegroom returned to Browndown. The rector remained in town for a day or two visiting some friends. I went back to my father, to accompany him, as I had promised, on his journey from Ma.r.s.eilles to Paris.

As well as I remember, I remained a fortnight abroad. In the course of that time, I received kind letters from Browndown. One of them announced that Oscar had heard from his brother.

Nugent's letter was not a long one. It was dated at Liverpool, and it announced his embarkation for America in two hours' time. He had heard of a new expedition to the Arctic regions--then fitting out in the United States--with the object of discovering the open Polar sea, supposed to be situated between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. It had instantly struck him that this expedition offered an entirely new field of study to a landscape painter in search of the sublimest aspects of Nature. He had decided on volunteering to join the Arctic explorers--and he had already raised the necessary money for his outfit by the sale of the only valuables he possessed--his jewelry and his books. If he wanted more, he engaged to apply to Oscar. In any case, he promised to write again, before the expedition sailed. And so, for the present only, he would bid his brother and sister affectionately farewell.--When I afterwards looked at the letter myself, I found nothing in it which referred in the slightest degree to the past, or which hinted at the state of the writer's own health and spirits.