On the Way to the End. First Stage

You will perhaps expect me to give some account of how Oscar bore the discovery of his brother’s conduct.

I find it by no means easy to do this. Oscar baffled me.

The first words of any importance which he addressed to me were spoken on our way to the station. Rousing himself from his own thoughts, he said very earnestly ——

“I want to know what conclusion you have drawn¹ from Mrs. Finch²’s letter.”

Naturally enough, under the circumstances, I tried to avoid answering him. He was not to be put off in that way.

“You will do me a favor,” he went on, “if you will reply to my question. The letter has bred in me such a vile³ suspicion of my dear good brother, who never deceived me in his life, that I would rather believe I am out of my mind than believe in my own interpretation⁴ of it. Do you infer from what Mrs. Finch writes, that Nugent has presented himself to Lucilla under my name? Do you believe that he has persuaded her to leave her friends, under the impression that she has yielded to My entreaties⁵, and trusted herself to My care?”

I answered in the fewest and plainest words, “That is what your brother has done.”

A sudden change passed over him. My reply seemed to have set his last doubts at rest in an instant.

“That is what my brother has done,” he repeated. “After all that I sacrificed to him — after all that I trusted to his honor — when I left England.” He paused, and considered a little. “What does such a man deserve?” he went on; speaking to himself, in a low threatening tone that startled me.

“He deserves,” I said, “what he will get when we reach England. You have only to show yourself to make him repent⁶ his wickedness to the last day of his life. Are exposure and defeat not punishment enough for such a man as Nugent?” I stopped, and waited for his answer.

He turned his face away from me, and said no more until we arrived at the station. There, he drew me aside for a moment out of hearing of the strangers about us.

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