e for," he replied, "will never see
me."

I understood him at last. _That_ was the consideration which had
reconciled him to it!

Lucilla's horror of dark people and dark shades of color, of all kinds,
was, it is needless to say, recalled to my memory by the turn the
conversation was taking now. Had she confessed it to him, as she had
confessed it to me? No! I remembered that she had expressly warned me not
to admit him into our confidence in this matter. At an early period of
their acquaintance, she had asked him which of his parents he resembled.
This led him into telling her that his father had been a dark man.
Lucilla's delicacy had at once taken the alarm. "He speaks very tenderly
of his dead father," she said to me. "It may hurt him if he finds out the
antipathy I have to dark people. Let us keep it to ourselves." As things
now were, it was on the tip of my tongue to remind him, that Lucilla
would hear of his disfigurement from other people; and then to warn him
of the unpleasant result that might follow. On reflection, however, I
thought it wiser to wait a little and sound his motives first.

"Before you tell me how I can help you," I said, "I want to know one
thing more. Have you decided in this serious matter entirely by yourself?
Have you taken no advice?"

"I don't want advice," he answered sharply. "My case admits of no choice.
Even such a nervous undecided creature as I am, can judge for himself
where there is no alternative."

"Did the doctors tell you there was no alternative?" I asked.

"The doctors were afraid to tell me. I had to force it out of them. I
said, 'I appeal to your honor to answer a plain question plainly. Is
there any certain prospect of my getting the better of the fits?' They
only said, 'At your time of life, we may reasonably hope so.' I pressed
them closer:--'Can you fix a date to which I may look forward as the date
of my deliverance?' They could neither of them do it. All they could say
was, 'Our experience justifies us in believing that you will grow out of
it; but it does _not_ justify us in saying when.' 'Then, I may be years
growing out of it?' They were obliged to own that it might be so. 'Or I
may never grow out of it, at all?' They tried to turn the conversation. I
wouldn't have it. I said, 'Tell me honestly, is that one of the
possibilities, in my case?' The Dimchurch doctor looked at the London
doctor. The London man said, 'If you will have it, it is one of the
possib