la of the discoloration of his
face, did I not agree with you that he ought to put himself right with
her, in his own interests?"

True again. Impossible to deny that he had sided with my view.

"When she all but found it out for herself, whose influence was used to
make him own it? Mine! What did I do, when he tried to confess it, and
failed to make her understand him? what did I do when she first committed
the mistake of believing _me_ to be the disfigured man?"

The audacity of that last question fairly took away my breath. "You
cruelly helped to deceive her," I answered indignantly. "You basely
encouraged your brother in his fatal policy of silence."

He looked at me with an angry amazement on his side which more than
equaled the angry amazement on mine.

"So much for the delicate perception of a woman!" he exclaimed. "So much
for the wonderful tact which is the peculiar gift of the sex! You can see
no motive but a bad motive in my sacrificing myself for Oscar's sake?"

I began to discern faintly that there might have been another than a bad
motive for his conduct. But--well! I dare say I was wrong; I resented the
tone he was taking with me; I would have owned I had made a mistake to
anybody else in the world; I wouldn't own it to _him._ There!

"Look back for one moment," he resumed, in quieter and gentler tones.
"See how hardly you have judged me! I seized the opportunity--I swear to
you this is true--I seized the opportunity of making myself an object of
horror to her, the moment I heard of the mistake that she had made. I
felt in myself that I was growing less and less capable of avoiding her,
and I caught at the chance of making _her_ avoid _me;_ I did that--and I
did more! I entreated Oscar to let me leave Dimchurch. He appealed to me,
in the name of our love for each other, to remain. I couldn't resist him.
Where do you see signs of the conduct of a scoundrel in all this? Would a
scoundrel have betrayed himself to you a dozen times over--as I did in
that talk of ours in the summer-house? I remember saying in so many
words, I wished I had never come to Dimchurch. What reason but one could
there be for my saying that? How is it that you never even asked me what
I meant?"

"You forget," I interposed, "that I had no opportunity of asking you.
Lucilla interrupted us, and diverted my attention to other things. What
do you mean by putting me on my defence in this way?" I went on, more and
more irritated by t