. I looked at the book. It was _Rousseau's Confessions._

He advanced with his pleasant smile, and offered his hand as if nothing
had happened to disturb our ordinary relations towards each other. I drew
back a step, and looked at him.

"Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked.

"I will answer that directly," I said. "Where is your brother?"

"I don't know."

"When you _do_ know, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, and when you have brought your
brother back to this house, I will take your hand--not before."

He bowed resignedly, with a little satirical shrug of the shoulders, and
asked if he might offer me a chair.

I took a chair for myself, and placed it so that I might be opposite to
him when he resumed his seat. He checked himself in the act of sitting
down, and looked towards the open window.

"Shall I throw away my cigar?" he said.

"Not on my account. I have no objection to smoking."

"Thank you." He took his chair--keeping his face in the partial obscurity
cast by the shade of the lamp. After smoking for a moment, he spoke
again, without turning to look at me. "May I ask what your object is in
honoring me with this visit?"

"I have two objects. The first is to see that you leave Dimchurch
to-morrow morning. The second is to make you restore your brother to his
promised wife."

He looked round at me quickly. His experience of my irritable temper had
not prepared him for the perfect composure of voice and manner with which
I answered his question. He looked back again from me to his cigar, and
knocked off the ash at the tip of it (considering with himself) before he
addressed his next words to me.

"We will come to the question of my leaving Dimchurch presently," he
said. "Have you received a letter from Oscar?"

"Yes."

"Have you read it?"

"I have read it."

"Then you know that we understand each other?"

"I know that your brother has sacrificed himself--and that you have taken
a base advantage of the sacrifice."

He started, and looked round at me once more. I saw that something in my
language, or in my tone of speaking, had stung him.

"You have your privilege as a lady," he said. "Don't push it too far.
What Oscar has done, he has done of his own free will."

"What Oscar has done," I rejoined, "is lamentably foolish, cruelly wrong.
Still, perverted as it is, there is something generous, something noble,
in the motive which has led _him._ As for your conduct in this matter, I
see nothing but what