n
what to do. But I say again--impossible as it seems--he was, beyond all
doubt, genuinely penitent for what he had said, the instant after he had
said it! With all my experience of humanity, and all my practice in
dealing with strange characters, I stopped mid-way between Nugent and the
locked door, thoroughly puzzled.

"Do you believe me?" he asked.

"I don't understand you," I answered.

He took the key of the door out of his pocket, and put it on the
table--close to the chair from which I had just risen.

"I lose my head when I talk of her, or think of her," he went on. "I
would give everything I possess not to have said what I said just now. No
language you can use is too strong to condemn it. The words burst out of
me: if Lucilla herself had been present, I couldn't have controlled them.
Go, if you like. I have no right to keep you here, after behaving as I
have done. There is the key, at your service. Only think first, before
you leave me. You had something to propose when you came in. You might
influence me--you might shame me into behaving like an honorable man. Do
as you please. It rests with you."

Which was I, a good Christian? or a contemptible fool? I went back once
more to my chair, and determined to give him a last chance.

"That's kind," he said. "You encourage me; you show me that I am worth
trying again. I had a generous impulse in this room, yesterday. It might
have been something better than an impulse--if I had not had another
temptation set straight in my way."

"What temptation?" I asked.

"Oscar's letter has told you: Oscar himself put the temptation in my way.
You must have seen it."

"I saw nothing of the sort."

"Doesn't he tell you that I offered to leave Dimchurch for ever? I meant
it. I saw the misery in the poor fellow's face, when Grosse and I were
leading Lucilla out of the room. With my whole heart, I meant it. If he
had taken my hand, and had said Good-bye, I should have gone. He wouldn't
take my hand. He insisted on thinking it over by himself. He came back,
resolved to make the sacrifice, on his side----"

"Why did you accept the sacrifice?"

"Because he tempted me."

"Tempted you?"

"Yes! What else can you call it--when he offered to leave me free to
plead my own cause with Lucilla? What else can you call it--when he
showed me a future life, which was a life with Lucilla? Poor, dear,
generous fellow, he tempted me to stay when he ought to have encouraged
me to go